Quality comes with headache magically. Review on Airtel Digital TV

I was satisfied with my local cable. There was no problem with them. But when I shifted to our new flat I opted for a DTH service. This is purely outcome of the havoc advertisement from the DTH service providers. I referred Mouthshut for the best service provider which would give best value for the money.

Dish TV/Big Tv was the cheapest but so much negative feedback, so I opted it out. SUN package was attractive but in West Bengal there was not very good dealer network for sun. So it was also cancelled. Now among Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV I had to choose one. Airtel was lucrative for its World Space radio and Tata Sky for its lower cost compared to Airtel. Suddenly I found that Airtel has a promotional offer Rs 2600 for 1 year subscription and the channel list was suitable for my test. So I went with Airtel.

I paid Rs 2600 to Airtel dealer and he gave me one Rs 1750 and Rs 800 voucher. It was Rs 50 less than what I paid. When I asked about it, dealer said customer care will adjust for the same when you install it. (ADT don't have Rs50 voucher that's why) . The installation guy almost come on time. They installed the product professionally. It was impressive. My TV came with a new live.

Picture quality is definitely better than the local cable. Sound quality is also good. Program guide are OK. Most interesting part is its universal remote. With one remote you can control your set top box and basic operation of the TV both. that is really good and very convenient compared to the other service provider. For the last one month there is no down time. Only sad part was that with my 1 year package there was no World Space radio.

Now I called the customer care for the adjustment of the Rs 50. At that time I realized that the customercare executive people here are real dumb. I could not make them understand that what I was asking for. Here the problem is the communication/information gap between CC, Dealer and ADT corporate. Anyway that was sorted out by the dealer.

Next problem was when I tried to add some top ups. I asked the CC to add Hindi Plus as top up and this time they did well. After 2 weeks I made a request to deactivate the Hindi Plus and activate Music Plus top up. Here they messed it tremendously. What they did they added Hindi Plus package once more and tried to deactivate Music Plus. After two days when I did not get Music Plus I called CC and found that I have two Hindi Plus and I was charged twice naturally. What a joke from ADT. Why a customer will ever asked for same top up twice. I made a complain to refund the amount and till now did not get any response. Anyway this time they added the music plus and world space radio service is good.

Few points

1. In my set top box my account balance does not refreshed. It always shows wrong balance. When I call to CC they always say that it will be corrected with 7 days. I don't know whether STB is defective or there system though it always show correct balance in their website.

   
   




2. They deduct the amount on daily basis for the top up. But deactive is only possible on or from 26th of every month. If you want to deactivate any package on 20th it will be processed on 26th. So you have to pay for this 6 days.

   
   




3. All the promotional cash back offer etc are properly processed. Their website info is lagging behind the current offering

   
   




4. The toll free number is only accessible from Airtel or Vodafone mobile. It can't be connected from Reliance/BSNL though they deny this fact.

   
   




5. You can recharge from online through credit card.

   
   




6. For the Super value 1 year pack they don't have any sports channels except DD sports which is good for nothing.

   
   




7. You can tune ABS satellite with this STB and can get some more foreign channel but they are not so good.

   
   

Some facts about DTH

I think DTH was introduced with the line that 'pay only for those channel which you will watch'. That promise is not maintained at all. Because here you have to pay for number of unnecessary channel (like I do not understand of that regional channel but I have to subscribe for this as they are in the package. You can't choose any channel as per your choice. In every top up there are only one/two popular channel along with some junk channel just to increase the number of channel count and hence the charge.

So if you don't need a slightly better quality picture then don't go for it (except you are getting very bad service from your local cable operator.) Because with this slightly better quality you have to take a Dish installation, number of headaches like the package charge, validity, stupid CC etc . Ultimately you have to pay much more than Cable operator only to get much lesser number of channel. I am recommending ADT only over all the DTH service providers. (though I have not get chances to compare all of them personally). I think Airtel is not bad among them but Airtel needs to improve their CC.