| | Tata Communications and Reliance Communications are the two chief providers of fixed WiMAX services in India, so competition between the two is inevitable. Even though Reliance is in the WiMAX business, a representative from Tata claimed its the only player, with Reliance having withdrawn its services due is incompetency and technical faults last year.
Was it just a speculative gimmick, so-as-to mentally coerce customers to ask for just Tata Wimax? “Yes, it is just a sales technique to hinder the user from approaching Reliance” said Diyva, a Reliance representative. “Reliance provides hassle free service till electronic city in Bangalore, beyond that we don’t provide. We provide best services, high connectivity, super speed of up to 2Mbps” added Diyva, which sounded much like a verbatim sales pitch. She said it takes a week to get the installation done. If the customer faces a problem and wants to discontinue at an early stage Reliance also refunds the installation fee, she said.
However, a dealer, who works with both Reliance and Tata said: “In areas near HAL, Reliance is just a waste, there has been so many cases where in customers have withdrawn from Reliance”. HAL uses frequency of 3.36 GHZ and Reliance also users the same, making the blockage of signal quite often.
Chandresh, who happens to be a Reliance dealer and also a Reliance WiMAX user, reckons, yes, there are technical problems with Reliance in some areas, which have trees or surrounded by big buildings as they tend to absorb or obstruct signal. But the signal is checked before installing, and he said the firm looks out for four to five parameters before installing. 'Even if there is a lack in one parameter we don’t install. Everything gets done within one week of installation period,' he said.
But what if the customer faces problems frequently after the installation; will his money be refunded in that case? No, once the installation is done the money cannot be refunded said Chandresh.
Well, Reliance may not be out of the WiMAX business but its faux pas are many, a user who got the installation done almost three weeks back, faces non-connectivity on a regular basis and calls the customer care only to hear that his information is still not uploaded and the issue will be resolved within 24hours. “ It’s almost two weeks, since I made my first call, and till date I am given the same monotonous speech by the customer care executives, “ we are sorry for inconvenience caused, I am escalating your issue on a high priority basis and your problem will be solved within 24hours”, said the aggrieved customer. We wonder, if Reliance has asked to end all complaints with the former in quotes. Hope things are better by April next year, when Mobile WiMAX gets introduced in India. | |