So, I had to switch from my 2 year old BSNL connection to get myself a Tata Docomo GSM, after BSNL failed to provide stable network signals at my hostel. Less than 20 days have passed since I made the switch and I’m frustrated enough to write a rant, first ever on this blog.
When I got back to home yesterday, I had over 250 MegaBytes of 3G data internet left. Fast forward to today 5:13 pm, I was charged INR 85.96 for surpassing the data limit. What’s stinging me the most is not the $1.5 I am charged, it is the rate at which the data vaporised.
I am the most
data conscious person I’ve ever met. As I use my Android phone to tether my Windows laptop to internet, I have firewalls set up both on my phone and laptop so that no unwanted app wastes any single byte. Moreover, I keep the images tuned off in all my browsers, even on Opera Mini on my Android. While writing posts for my blog, I do that offline on Windows Live Writer and then connect to the internet when I’ve to publish it. The only thing I have downloaded in the last two days is a 11 second long video from Youtube,
a teaser of the Canvas Turbo, in 360p quality.
Long Story Short: What's the rant about? I was charged for data usage with free data usage still left. No satisfactory response from the customer care representative. No warning message from Docomo to warn me that I was about to cross my free data limit. I even doubt how they are measuring data usage. Similar data usage on BSNL costed 10 MB, while Docomo clocked it as 150 MB. Might sound stupid, but does TRAI keeps a check on how these telecom companies measure data usage?
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The last data session, according to Docomo, caused 147523 kilobytes to shift from some place on the internet to my browser window. I guess the session lasted about 30 minutes or so, with me browsing through about 25 webpages – with images off and plugins (like Flash) disabled, and the only considerable download being the Youtube video weighing 453 KB. Before I began the session, I was sitting at 60 MB of free usage. The moment I thought that I should give checking my data balance a try and turned off the internet on my Android device to do so, I was greeted by a message telling me that I was charged INR 85.96 for the last activity and that the last internet usage was 147523 KB. In that message, it showed the Free Data left to be 0.00 KB.
I cursed Docomo from the bottom of my heart for not providing any warning message or so and sat back. Don’t know why but after a while, I decided to check my data balance yet again. To my amusement, my free Data Usage left was 4.94 MB. Now, I was angry. I called 121 the very next moment but after listening to the crappy automated IVRS for 7 minutes, could not figure out how to get to a human being to listen my plea. After googling for another 10 minutes (using my BSNL sim, which works perfectly fine at home), I learnt
the magical sequence which would let me to talk to a real homo sapien. When the call finally connected to the internet, on the other end was a helpline operator who, I later on realized, needed some serious help himself. I told him my story, after holding my call for some time, he read me some blueprint explanation saying I had accessed some chargeable content. When I told him that I was just using the internet as normal, which included Youtube and some Googling. As soon as he heard Youtube, he said there are chargeable videos on Youtube. As I was pretty sure I didn’t miss any announcement from Google about launch of some stupid paid video stuff on Youtube, I replied firmly to the rep that Youtube doesn’t have any chargeable content. He repeated what I said in a questioning tone and when I replied in affirmative, seeing my firm belief, he offered me to pass my call to a senior. I agreed. After holding my line on hold for two minutes, he told me that the senior rep was busy. I told him that I have quite a lot of free time and could wait, he said he will try again. This time, the call connected to the senior rep within seconds. I wonder if he was trying to get me to disconnect the call.
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| Free Data Left = 4.94 MB |
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| Data Charge, though free data still left |
I repeated the same stuff to the Senior guy. He put the call on hold for the umpteenth time and on resuming, told me that I had used 147523 KB of data out of which 60 MB was free and the other part was charged. I then asked me how the current data balance shows to be 4.94 MB. This seemed to be the limit of his intelligence as he started cooking theories about how internet works and how I was charged for using data even though I had 5 mb of the free one left. He taught me that every page on the internet
has a “capacity” and that doing “multiple browsing”, I took that for opening multiple tabs, caused the charge to occur even though I still had 5 MB data left. He also told me that I was charged for 87 MB at the rate of 10p/10KB. I am still doubting his Math skills (or mine) over how he did the calculations. When 10 KB costs 10 paisa, it means INR 1 will get me 100 Kilobytes while INR 85.96 will get me 8.596 MB data. He seemed to be at a loss about how I wasn’t charged INR 870 as per the charge tariff he mentioned. Failing to provide a satisfying answer (about how I was charged for surpassing my free data limit when I already had 5 MB in my kitty), he asked if he could help me with anything else, I asked him if he could write down a suggestion of mine: To alert the customer when he is about to cross his/her free data limits so that he is charged only if he is willing to. To this, his response was, “Aap nischint rahiye”. I knew he was asking me not to worry about others and stay more alert the next time.
I tried using my BSNL sim to get an idea of how much data I would use up in that amount of time. In my 30 minutes of normal data usage, same duration as that of my last data session on Docomo, it costed me about 9 MB data. This makes me doubtful of how Tata Docomo measures internet usage. I wonder if TRAI regulates the way these mobile operators calculate uploaded and downloaded data.
A similar case happened to me when I was using Vodafone 3G on a friend’s device. But in that case, when I was about to pass the limit, a message warned me that I was about to exceed the limit. Though I disconnected as soon as I got the message, still, thanks to 3G speeds, it costed my friend INR 51. But still I had no grudge over Vodafone for that. There was indeed 0 MB free data usage left and I was also given a warning. Apart from TRAI (or Docomo itself) checking the way data usage is calculated, I would love someone from Docomo to explain how I was charged when I still had 5 MB free data left and also to give some kind of warning in case I am about to cross my data threshold.
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Press OK to activate
the service |
Today’s incident reminded me of a friend, who was charged over INR 100 for services he didn’t want to activate, thanks to the fishy flash messages that are sent by Docomo from time to time. After hours of talking to the helpline reps, trying them to accept to the fact that the services were indeed activated accidentally, he could get a refund. I am not sure if even 20% of people would raise a finger (or even know) that they have been charged without any mistake of theirs. And even of those 20%, more than half would be turned down by the representatives. This stuff ain’t going to help you in the long run, Docomo. That’s all I can say. As of now, I shall switch back to BSNL for internet when I am home and use Docomo for voice calling at hostel.
Update: Tata Docomo got to me on Twitter and another representative called me after some time. He was equally clueless about how I was charged for data with free data still left, but he talked in a more professional way and I didn't want to argue with him muchas I was a bit busy at that time. Congrats Docomo, I quit. Enjoy my INR 86.
