Users complain of poor service, inadequate support from customer care.
In spite of enjoying high browsing speeds on his 3G connection, Shrinath Nau-ghane from Pune was forced to opt out of the subscription plan following erratic network shifts and poor customer support.
“I had lodged complaints with the call centre and every time they would say the prob-lem was fixed but there was no improvement,” said the Vodafone subscriber.
Dhaval Valia, who loves watching mobile TV, says the live streaming would freeze at least three times on his way back home to a Mumbai suburb. “It has improved since the past one week but earlier there would be at least seven interruptions.”
The sudden drop in calls and shift from 3G to 2G data services have added to the consumers’ frustration. However, service providers said the problem was temporary and upgradation of networks to 3G services was the reason. “The cell sites are still being upgraded and cell expansions is not over,” said an official of a tower com-pany, requesting anonymity.
The maximum complaints received were from Vodafone subscribers. However, the operator refused to comment on the issue.
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B N Kumar, who manages a leading public relations com-pany, activated his 3G service in February. However, Kumar has not been able to use the 3G network either at home or at his office. “I got a 3G connection for a few minutes after activation but then it switched off. I went to the outlet and cross-checked if my phone was compatible and they answered in the affirmative.” Despite repea-ted complaints, Kumar was unable to use the services and is planning to shift back to 2G.
Consumers are not only left to deal with the gaps in their 3G network, they are not happy with the customer service executives either. “It is tough to reach customer care and on most times the executives are unaware of the nature of the prob-lem,” said Kumar.
Similar prob-lems were expe-rienced by Mrinal Sharma who was offered an upgrade to 3G networks by her service provider Airtel. “I was told that I would get free data and great speed. So I up-graded my data plan.” Now, Sharma is back to her 2G plan as the “3G coverage was so poor that I could never down-load a video or watch IPL matches on my mobile.” Cus-tomer support executives said 3G would have interruptions while travelling in the city.
According to industry experts, telecom operators have not made enough investments on 3G networks. “Some operators had expected the biggest chunk of subscribers to come from business districts where you see decently good coverage and good speed. It could also be possible that the infra-structure that they had set up was not enough for the spike in volumes that they have seen,” said Alok Shende, co-founder and principal analyst of Ascentius Consulting.
“With most operators opting for partial upgradation to 3G networks, the number of subscribers who would latch onto the network remains dodgy. As more subscribers add on to the network the performance of the premium service will improve,” claimed experts.