Wisetechie Blog : Ctrl your Tech Life

This is sort of a repeat post, i was chatting with my friend yesterday and he was really clueless about sending free sms to people. One thing which i dont get is, why is it shameful to use a free SMS service ?

I mean, am i cooler if i pay 1 rupee to Airtel for each message i send. So, when you are at home, save some money and use free SMS services to send SMSes to friends. It works with almost all Indian operators and is free, what have you got to lose ? I use the service by Mginger.

Also you do get the option to receive ads and be paid for the same, again the money there aint great but occasionally you get discount coupons which have to be shown in shops on your cell screen, although i must confess i have never tried them.

So sign up here to start sending free SMSes

Fans of Apple in India arent happy, well the majority arent, i admit Bhaichung Bhutia looked happy with his Iphone. Apple’s announcement of the Iphone in India turned out to be a huge whimper due to the exhortative pricing strategy employed by Apple with Airtel and Vodafone. Lets admit it, we knew the price wasnt going to be the US price os $199 or 8000 rupees. We were pegging it at 13k-18k rupees which would sort of even justify some of the hype but what was the result is truly a gameplan lost.

We have scores of emails from prospective buyers telling Apple to keep the Iphone with themselves, most cant evven think about spending >30k on a mobile device with a shitty 2 MP camera, no video recording and a 3G USP which isnt even functional yet.

Forums are full of people hitting back at the hype, people are telling Airtel agents to goto hell and stop promoting their iBoxes as iPhones. Iphone fanatics who were certain to purchase the phone have dumped it, quite frankly as they cant afford it.

So who would go for a Nokia N96, Nokia N95 instead of the Iphone ? , the smart money says anyone with a decent amount of brain and anyone who isnt a Steve Jobs obsessed fanboy.

So unless you want to show off your Iphone by pinching a photo to zoom in and zoom out, give the Iphone 3G India a HUGE miss. There is a price drop around the corner for this overpriced piece of junk. Or better, get a laptop instead.

Please dont mind the low volume

The phone as you can see is really great, the P320 is full value for money, remember this Asus P320 review is genuine and we actually own and use the product reviewed.

In what will directly impact the sales of the Iphone 3G phones, the Indian Government today announced plans to e-auction the 3G spectrum in India. BSNL and MTNL will get the spectrum automatically by paying the highest bid price, private operators will have to bid.

International parties too can bid for a piece of the Indian 3G spectrum slice but with a catch, they will either have to get a license or invest in an existing Indian company to offer 3G services.

The non-availability of 3G services was the biggest drawback as far as the Iphone 3G’s sales in India were concerned. Vodafone and Airtel must be thanking their stars as this announcement is bound to boost both interest and demand for the new Apple Iphone 3Gs in India which is expected to be launched this month.

The 3G or 3rd Generation platform offers download speeds of 14.4 Mbits/second and upload speeds of 5.8 Mbits/sec . These speeds are much more than the present ones offered under 2G. India has a huge range of 3G phones in the market for a long time now, but the services were missing. 3G will allow services like video calling, streaming data and VoIP at a fast and hopefully economical price.

The 3G spectrum offers a much higher bandwidth which ensures faster data transfer as more channels are available and simultaneous transfer of different types of data like Voice, Video and misc. data.

Also announced in MNP or mobile number portability, so people will be able to switch networks without changing their numbers. Idea and Spice users who wish to get the Iphone may choose this route once the MNP is implemented.

Well i used to hate all that Mginger spam i got earlier, but now i am sort of liking the service, their new Mginger messenger allows you to send free SMS to anyone in India, and believe me the messages are sent instantly unlike some other web services which may take hours to send SMSes, so anyway , i am enjoying the free SMS service on Mginger, and hope you do too.

The links are affiliate links because i really recommend this service for the free SMSing :). As far as earning money via SMS ads goes, i have earned a grand total of five rupees from them, but others who were much more proactive in spamming have earned a lot more.

Click here to Join Mginger

So finally i was fed up with my earlier router which would start rebooting itself sporadically sometimes and wouldn’t calm down for hours. I filed for a change in router and my area’s engineer did it pretty fast.

Its a Telenet router TNDSL 2120 and hopefully wont fail me. It has slightly more features than my previous router, but the same firmware, version is newer. My earlier one was a Broadcom router which served me for 10 months before becoming problematic.

The last level support in my area from Tata Indicom broadband has been pretty good. The nodal officer at the top level is a horror though, if you live in Delhi, there is no use contacting the nodal officer of Tata Indicom broadband, he will never solve your queries and keep blaming it on someone else. Its such a long story that i cant even post it here. TOOOOOO LONG !

I hope the current officer is changed quickly though, people like him don’t deserve to be in such posts.

For all of those who have tried to find the railway schedules and fares on the Internet, there is no feeling more frustrating than the stupid errors from one of the Railway’s servers that its  too busy. These servers all have Indian names BTW like real people. So enter private company, the railways provide them access to their database, in-turn the private player takes load off the railway’s servers, symbiosis !

Rediff Online Indian Railways Train Enquiry Video Review

The above video review tests the functionality of the Rediff website.

Pros:

• Faster than Normal Railways Search
• No Logging in required unlike IRCTC
• Easy to Use

Cons:

• Station suggestion needs improvement
• It would be great if Rediff passes info to the IRCTC website
• Booking should also be allowed directly

Verdict: An incredibly easy to use and functional service, it offers great utility, highly recommended.

Another tale of bad customer service, this time from supposedly the best and most expensive brand in the consumer durables market. But Sony India just lost all the respect i had for them.

Hopefully someone can forward this to a Sony India personnel. Thanks, i as a consumer am appealing to your guys reading this.

So it all started when i purchased a Digital Camera (Cybershot) from an authorised Sony dealer alongwith a Memory Stick. The dealer told me that the memory stick has a 5 year warranty , i asked him to mention this on the bill so that they don’t refuse. A warranty card was inside the Digital Camera package but there was none in/with the memory stick.

Anyway the memory stick turned out to be junk, losing files like crazy. I goto Sony service center in New Delhi and the guys there tell me that i need a warranty card, i tell them the dealer didnt give me a warranty card. So they give me Sony India’s corporate office (Mathura Road) number which i call and ask to speak to customer care , i am redirected to their call center (i think) , i tell the lady my ordeal and she says that there should be no problem and transfers me to a senior at their Mathura Road office. She talks to service center guys who say they need a warranty card, hands the phone to me.  Now i am talking to Ms. ________ (name hidden for privacy) , she is the rudest person that can talk to a customer. Literally shouts at me that warranty card is not a paper sticking to the memory stick (WTH !) , i tell her to mind her tone, she replies : my tone is not complicated and then says “now that you say it , your stick will not be serviced without a warranty card” , anyway my blood is boiling at this point of time so i say ok and slam my flip phone.

Anyway 2-3 things, my only fault was trusting the dealer and Sony as a company, please look into the following points:

1. Why is your staff at office not trained to talk politely to customers ?

2. How is it a customer’s fault that the dealer didn’t hand the warranty card ? Its for precisely this reason i asked him to mention the warranty in the bill, i am a genuine customer, with a genuine bill bought a genuine product from your authorized dealer.

3. I have a proof of purchase, i have the product but still Sony India refused to solve my problem.

Update:

I received a reply from their Northern Region customer care head, i have sent my invoice to them, i will keep everyone updated, hopefully Sony India will live up to its great name.

Earlier occasions where bad service was highlighted and was successful in company’s response:

• Tnt Courier Customer Care issue : An employee of the company read our post and helped.
• A seller on Homeshop18 committed a fraud on us, the company later refunded the money and courier costs

Our international readers will find the title of the post odd, but in India the Iphone launch is delayed, some Indian bloggers to gain visitors had reported that launch will be same day as international launch, ofcourse they have been proven wrong. Anyway, both Airtel and Vodafone are allowing people to book their Iphone on their websites, ofcourse, this seems to be more of a database building exercise, Airtel’s terms are as follows :

• “Booking” means expression of interest of buying Apple iPhone3G when it is available in the market.
• “Booking” doesnt imply that the customer has to purchase the product when it is launched and available.
• “Booking” doesnot guarantee that the product shall be made available to the customer.
• Airtel reserves the right to refuse the Booking at any stage.
• Airtel reserves the right to withdraw “Booking” at any time or at any stage.
• Some of the product features are not available in India or in certain service areas. Some of the features and services are dependent on the type of network the customer is in eg 3G, EDGE, GPRS, GSM. 3G is not available presently in India.

Customer doesnt have to buy, its not necessary that you will sell to them, then whats this booking business ?

Vodafone on the other hand dont even have any terms and conditions on their site, infact looking to make a quick buck , they have asked people to SMS their intention to buy iPhone to a premium SMS number.

Both companies are however honest  about this :

Some features and services are not available in all areas.

India will not support a lot of the Iphone features. We will update you on the price and terms as soon as we hear from Airtel and/or Vodafone.

So i got a 419 scam email from a live.co.uk address and being a good citizen , i decide to report it so that the email account shuts off. On searching through the internet i find that abuse has to be reported to abuse@passport dot com , anyway my email is bounced back.

Reporting-MTA: dns;blu0-omc3-s18.blu0.hotmail.com
Received-From-MTA: dns;BLU126-W37
Arrival-Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 22:14:58 -0700

Final-Recipient: rfc822;abuse@passport.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.5.0
Diagnostic-Code: smtp;554 Transaction Failed (1022769381:189:-2147467259)

Microsoft is just helping these scammers if they abuse reporting tools are rejecting emails.I wonder how many people will be scammed just because Microsoft chose not to act responsibly.