BSNL బాధలు

I am having BSNL broadband issues and I am jotting down my interaction with them in this blog now onwards.

7-NOV-09
Lot of noise in the line and attenuation is very high. Unless I switch on phone too, I can't connect to broadband. This method also depends on luck. Only 20% choice. I raised a complaint with BSNL 1500 Swagatam services on 7th November 2009. Complaint no. 11060618639
10-NOV-09 4:30 p.m.
Called up to follow. Fortunately the customer rep is far better than expected standard from BSNL. He queried "No body turned up since 7th?" "Not even called you?". Then I made sure that I called them for followup and he should log the same against incident. He assured and somebody will attend on tomorrow. Fingers crossed again.
12-NOV-09 9:30 p.m.
Called again after two days. Status OPEN. Exchange people responded to call complaint that they are checking the line. If I need to know more information, I need to call 197 number and find out JTO's telephone number and I should talk to him/her :-)
13-NOV-09 1:00 p.m.
BSNL technical person Mr. Raghunandan from Gachibowli (who in fact installed my set while took the Broad band connection) called up. Again same story started to explain and he started asking me to check the modem lights, modem settings etc. Finally I was able to explain that it is the issue with disturbance and SNR value is very low and Attenuation is very high > 45 most of the time. He wanted to make sure that no port related issues or exchange related issue before sending out technician on ground to verify the physical wires at different junction boxes between exchange and home.
16-NOV-09 1:00 p.m.
Obviously some coordination required when a person is planning to visit home. This ground technician Sattiah called and tried to tell us that he came and no body at home. Typical first excuse that they already made an effort. I fixed an appointment at 2:30 p.m on 16th Nov 2009. I called him at 2:25 p.m. and said that I am at home(drove from office for this purpose). No turn of this person till 3:30 p.m. and when I called and the answer is "I will be there in 10 minutes". I had change my voice and give him some lecture about my work /boss and his work/boss are same as far as office is concerned. He promptly came in 10 minutes. Now he was asked to check line has disturbance or not. He says, telephone is working. It is tough to explain this guy about broadband, ADSL, SNR and attenuation because he is not familiar with this. Only point he made is, lights are glowing so it should work. I called Raghunandan to explain, and he pointed to Sattiah that disturbance should not be there. He verified wall level wires etc and found out the initial point and did some cuts and joins again. Asked me to verify and definitely I could hear no change in the dolby digital noise from the line. He will be checking various lines from home to exchange in reverse order.
17-NOV-09 12:30 p.m.
Since last night i.e. 16th Nov 2009, Internet connection at Home is gone. Earlier I had 10% chances and now it is totally gone. The green light on modem which indicates "Internet" is gone. Unfortunately, the technician who came and verified the ports at home at two different places, the caps (crabtree switches) are gone and they are loosely fitted to just hold on. I was there but not sure when he just pressed forcefully. Pathetic feeling to get after seeing them damaged. Coming back to connection issue, today morning I called the same technician to find out the status and he identified there is a port issue and today they are going to replace the port. Keeping fingers crossed again.
18-NOV-09 12:44 p.m.
Both broadband and phone lines are dead since 17-NOV-09 afternoon. Reason, some digging at Gachibowli Y junction for flyover and whole network on Gachibowli side is gone. As usual, can't contact or no body lifts the phone if you call Gachibowli exchange. Raised a complaint for dead phone 11075537682
19-NOV-09 4:21 p.m.
Today morning by the time I woke up, telephone lines are restored and land line is working and was able to connect to internet but it was slow process and noise is still there.
20-NOV-09 11:40 a.m.
Called up Mr. Raghunandan. They are still busy with Gachibowli Y junction dug up. He promised he will verify the disturbance issue.
22-NOV-09 9:00 p.m
Called up customer service desk again as I could not connect at all. The probability of getting connected dropped from 5% to 1% or zero percent. I ask the CR to enter that I am filing a case in consumer court and he tried to evade the conversation and promised that he will escalate. I made sure that his team lead came in to call to discuss as this fellow does not want to enter additional comments. To my surprise, team leader says, that their customer support system will not allow any kind of additional information or updating facility once the ticket has been risen. Isn't it weird? After couple of persuasions and serious notes, he said that he can't do anything to the ticket. I had to hung up helplessly.
23-NOV-09 Monday 10:00 a.m
Visited Gachibowli exchange to meet folks and no person is there around and only line men are there and they do not know anything about who comes when. They suggested me to call JTO.
24-NOV-09 Tuesday
I tried to reach since Monday morning till now (Tuesday) evening and and both Satyanarayana (JTO) and Raghunandam are not picking up of the phones even when I called from my home (such that they can identify by location / caller ID).
27-NOV-09 Friday 10:00 a.m.
Since morning the telephones and broadband are totally down. Will wait for half a day before rising a complaint.
01-DEC-09 Tuesday 12:05 p.m.
For the last few days, things are going smooth and was able to connect to Internet with out any trial and errors. One thing I did was kept the modem on for 24 hours after first successful connect. Hoping for the best in future and giving a break for this write up till I find another issue with BSNL. :-)))

Thats it, you are grounded......

Thats it, you are grounded......, originally uploaded by $udhakar.

My collection of cameras and lenses. Click on the picture to read the story.

Mup.sys

Ran in to mup.sys problem again after a long time on my home PC (Windows XP). Tried 1st attempt of cold boot via install CD and CHKDSK running. It got booted normally later. But today morning it again hanged. Need to try one more attempt.

Time to ditch old PC. Can you believe it that my PC hard disk capacity is 6gb? Now a days normal PEN drives have that capacity. LOL. I am also looking for eco friendly desktops. Dell Hybrid model is pretty expensive. Liked the specs of ASUS eee Box B204 model. I may need to buy external optical drive. Not yet decided.

Stardust

Saw Stardust movie yesterday. It was fun and reminded me childhood fantasy stories. King, witch, magic spells, unimaginable transformations, castles and curiosity to see till the end. Very nice landscapes scenes for photographers like me. Only actors I could recognize are Robert De Niro and a lady from Desparate Housewives soap. I guess it is needed sometimes to travel to fantasy world revisit back to reality to understand that life is life and reality is reality. Movies do make you happy.

నక్షత్రదుమ్ము లేక నక్షత్రపొడి లెదా ఇంకా ఏదైనా పేరు ఉందా అని కొంచం సేపు ఆలోచించాలసి వచ్చింది. చిన్నప్పుడు చందమామ కధలు గుర్తుకు వచ్చాయి. రాజు గారు, ఏడుగురు కొడుకులు, మంత్రగత్తెలు, మంత్రాలు మనుషులు చిలకల గా ఉడుతులుగా మారిపోవడం బలే ఉందిలే. ఓ రెండు గంటలు పాటు అలా అలా ఎక్కడకో వెళ్ళి రావచ్చు. అక్కడ అక్కడ కొంచం పిల్లలని భయపెట్టే లాంటి సన్నివేశాలు ఉన్నా, పిల్లలకి నచ్చుతాది. (మన తెలుగు సినిమాలలో ఉన్న హింస కన్న కొంచం మంచిదే అని చెప్పచ్చు).

Another sunset

Another sunset, originally uploaded by $udhakar.

Swimming - Gachibowli stadium

It so happened that we decided to enroll kids in Gachibowli Stadium for swimming. Came to know that they will give applications on 1st April in the early morning and we were also warned that crowd will be there. I was mentally prepared for this and made kids excited about their summer fun.

Elder one is in very good mood and he asked for alarm and I set it for him. Obviously he did not getup and I woke up him when I was ready to go. By 6 a.m. sharp we were there and regular visitors are already there. The coach cum admin cum pseudo "I own this stadium" employee simply said, come at 8 a.m. for application. For all other questions, he pointed me to a wall to go and read whatever I could.

Returned home and freshened and had break fast and went again to the stadium. To my shock, at the main entrance there were numerous bikes and cars with full accelerator on and buzzing. Then I recollected the warning "crowd will be there". The moment security opened the gate, guys zipped through till the swimming pool area. It is like mad race. There it was another hurdle; the doors are locked and whole crowd is grouped there. Security folks came out and started distributed token numbers and junta attacked them. With the kids it was tough and there were some ladies who could not reach for these tokens. It is all part of the game I think. Later I understood that they will give 150 tokens and all those get tokens are assured of admission. Only catch is that you need to submit medical certificate that and identify proof. For kids, it is birth certificate to prove the age.

The whole mechanism is pretty chaos and it could be better system. There were about six to seven security guards who are blowing whistles and not doing any thing. And also need to blame on the whole crowd who are all educated and do not want to stand in a line.

I think, culture gives you some common sense and not education.

Anyways, need to go again tomorrow to submit the application

It is very rare that I quickly support any government decision. Today I felt like, with out any doubt I am supporting Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra governments for their clear stand and NOT providing security for IPL. Elections are important not cricket. Let IPL guys go abroad or Mars to conduct. Most of us anyway watch them on TV only. Anywhere in the world also, our sponsers spend money and TV ads will flow any way.

Good job AP and Maharastra governments on this.