AIRTEL improves!. Review on Touchtel DSL

The following review is an old one written in 2004... times have changed and Airtel is offering good services, but since there is no way to delete this review, it is being retained... for the moment the below review of mine would be totally out of place.

OLD REVIEW BELOW..... IGNORE....

Bharati's landline telephone and internet venture -TOUCHTEL - did not do as well as their mobile network AIRTEL! Spending crores on ads of airtel and again on touchtel was not a very good idea! So finally with

a single licence available in hand a single brand name would make the life easier....

All is fine, but are they bent on spoiling the reputation of the airtel as well ?

The prominent ad on newspaper showed Unlimited internet connection for Rs. 600/- of course

they had the usual star mark and one more start with conditions apply !

As for the conditions, it does not seem to be written anywhere.... these are conditions they will put whatever they want and whenever.... and of course brochures do say the customer has no business to know about it since they have the right to modify anything without informing the customer !

I decided to make an enquiry to take this Rs. 600/- per month connection. according to their tariff plan on their website airtelworld.com on webpage ''https://202.56.228.44/tariff1.htm'' today on September 27, 2004 the following are the only charges

Rs. 600/- monthly rental

Rs. 99/- modem rental

Rs. 1000/- DSL charges

Rs. 500/- modem security charges

This plan named Home 64 does not show any charges as Voice Registration Charges and Installation charges which is however shown only for plan Economy Combo Plan.

For any sensible person it would mean a new connection would cost only Rs.600+99+1000+500 = Rs.2199/-

So in order to take the connection I called up the customer care number. Just to make sure I again enquired again on the tariff plan details. To my surprise what their website (which surely was updated recently since it is now named airtel rather than touchtel as earlier) is telling only half truth.

According to the customer care agent, I will also have to take a telephone line with it by paying Rs. 1000 still more as deposit and Rs. 275/- or so as monthly rental, whether I would like to have a connection or not !

Neither does the ad on newspaper talk about the compulsory phone connection nor does the website

give the whole picture.

I really wonder how many people might have realized after taking connection/payment that they have to another telephone even if they want.

Now, you tell me........ IS THIS CHEATING IN THE NAME OF AIRTEL !

If they are going to start cheating before a person takes a connection itself....

Then God knows how they will take one for a ride on the internet connection !