Saturday, September 25, 2010

perhaps there is a good side to Murphy

Iv had the worst week, internet-wise. Inconsistent speeds. Network outage without warning. Bad wireless connectivity. Even worse, dealing with the so called “BSNL Broadband Help Desk.” I don’t even know why theyre called that. First of all, they don’t operate 24/7. When they are supposedly open for service, nobody answers the telephone. When you lodge a complaint through the IVR, nobody comes to fix things for you. Secondly, when you get through to them after trying 783467625342 times, they misdiagnose your problem, and tell you theres something wrong with your laptop and that their network is up and running. Perfect as a peach. But of course theyre wrong! Because even technologically-challenged ME, finally self-diagnosed the problem and fixed it. Without running a ping, without changing settings, without messing around with my network adaptor, and simply by using a cotton bud and some spirit.

Someone told me today that BSNL is protected from the consumer court too. It is impossible to take them to court for bad service. I'm convinced this is the primary reason for their complacency. In Goa, problems like this are compounded by peoples’ general nature and attitude to life. Which is why, I don’t know if its worth opting for another service provider and going through the headaches I did when setting up my BSNL connection, or just stick with this and just make a habit of barging into the exchange every time something is wrong, and demanding that someone fix it.

However, Murphy has been weirdly kind to me. And I say this because by some weird stroke of luck, through all the irregularities in my connection and network speeds, the internet has been kind enough to stick around exactly at those moment when I have needed to send out work-related files, download documents or do research.

Thank you Mr. Murphy. I hope I haven’t gone and jinxed my “good” luck.

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