Is our telecom companies taking us for a ride?

Image by sofianeb via FlickrTo be honest that question can be asked about our electricity board, our government itself even. But my recent hook up has been with my mobile network provider.

Until about 2 months back, Indian mobile companies were still not able to provide their customers with the option to take their number to a new network. So if you are unhappy with a network provider, go ahead and change networks, but you will end up with a whole new number, which mean you'll spend a while updating your friends and colleagues and whoever else with your new number.



Number portability finally came to India. YaY and stuff....but..there is a clause. Your number can only be ported within the circle. Any Indian that uses a mobile phone knows that every city has its own circle. So Mumbai is the Mumbai circle, Pune falls in the Maharastra & Goa circle. So basically if you use a Mumbai number in Pune you will end up paying exorbitantly high charges on roaming.

I know the above for a fact because I fell victim to the damn charges. Where I used to pay Rs.700/- on my mobile bills while in Mumbai, once I shifted to Pune in December of 2010 My bills went up to Rs.2000/-. My calls obviously didn't increase at the same rate. The only people I called was my mom and my friend back in Bombay. Conversations never last that long with me on the phone (i just get bored after a few minutes of talking sometimes lol)

In any case, when I moved to Pune, I did go to the Pune Vodafone store to try and get my number moved to the Maharastra & Goa circle, but they kept pushing me around asking for one document or the other. Finally I gave up on that and when number portability was introduced, I opted in for that. The first time I requested my port out code, I was contacted by the retention team of Vodafone, who promised me a better package on calls, SMS and blackberry services and also that my number would be converted to a Maharashtra and Goa circle number. Recently I faced some trouble with my blackberry services and on trying to dial 111 to get through to customer care, I was told *very rudely* by the customer care agent that I needed to call the Bombay customer care and that I would need to dial 9820098200 (which incidentally is not a toll free number).

On calling 9820098200, I get transferred from dept to dept and finally my call is disconnected without a resolution. Everytime you ask to speak to a floor supervisor at Vodafone, your call ends up being disconnected. So I basically spent more than 2 hours trying to get a resolution to my problem while paying 50p per 3 mins for a call that should ideally be toll free for me. All I learnt was that I was placed on some roaming plan, which ensures I don't get charges any roaming fees in Pune, however my number itself cannot be converted into a Pune circle number. I also got informed that my number cannot be ported to a service provider in Pune either as porting is only possible within the circle.

The world has moved on to a stage where mobile numbers are not state restricted, how many countries even have the concept of STD calls anymore? India thrives on cheating customers out of their hard earned money. Mobiles phones have become a necessity however it is still charged as a luxury item.

Now I can spend hours fighting Vodafone or switch to a new network in Pune. The hours fighting will end no where and I will have to get a new number anyways. I will however register a complaint in the consumer forum. I do strongly believe that as consumers we should stop letting these blood sucking conglomerates suck the very life out of us.

So now I will end up with a brand new number and I'm not particularly excited about that prospect. But oh well....its either that or pay ridiculously high bills for rotten services.