Broadband lagging in after-sales services
By agencies   |   Monday, 07 November 2005, 20:30 IST
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CHENNAI: The broadband base is increasing and new connections are being taken up everyday. Though companies are providing high-speed connectivity at economical deals they are lagging behind in after-sales services. According to Shobha Iyer, Coordinator of Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG), says, “The company agents make a lot of promises, because it's their job to sell the product. But the technical people are simply not able to implement those promises.” On technical front, few customers complain that the promised speed, be it 256 kbps or higher, is only the `burst speed,' and is not a constant stream. Commenting on this BSNL Chennai’s Chief General Manager, Brahmadathan said, “Each computer has different requirements. They may not be configured properly. The service personnel are not IT professionals, but telecom staff trained to suit broadband needs.” The PC infrastructure of each customer may not be updated. It could be a Pentium 2 or an older version of Windows or even a different operating system. “I'm not saying there are no flaws in our infrastructure, but these are some of the difficulties we face,” he added. Whereas, on connectivity speed he said, “We do not guarantee a through-put speed of 256 kbps, because you might be on a busy server, your own computer might be slow. What we guarantee is a minimum access speed of 256 kbps." In order to identify and eliminate every weak spot Sify Broadband has initiated a ‘Kaizen’ programme for its subscribers, said Srikanth Joshi, President-Access Media, Sify Ltd. In India, Chennai and Bangalore are the biggest markets for broadband and its customer base is not likely to reach the target size of 1.5 lakh by December 2005. Perhaps as these problems sort out by themselves, the customer base will inch closer to the target.

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