Ortel Communications: A review

You have probably not heard about this company if you are not from Bhubaneswar. I never wanted to write reviews for anything, other than, may be gadgets. But then, I had to mention about this company here. You will soon know why.

It's been more than a month that I have been using this broadband connection at home. When we got an internet connection (a broadband wired connection) at home, there were no other private providers here. Well, the BSNL guys told that a connection to our house wasn't possible at that point in time. Frankly speaking, we didn't have any choice whatsoever. Ortel Communication, had a monopoly everywhere in Orissa. Although, I was very reluctant to give my approval, we hooked onto their network.

Ok. To be frank, this is not a review, rather an outburst after all the torture and frustration I have gone through. So, I would only talk about their negatives here.

• At-least once a day, their modem goes offline. ("loses power"). <<----- That's what they say. And we have to call them every-time to let them know that the poor modem has lost power.
• I had plans of staying at home for sometime, and I would be also working from home for some time. So, I upgraded our connection to a 700kbps plan. I thought it would be enough for my needs. But then I realized that, although the download speed was almost close to 700kbps, the upload speed was pathetic at best (@100kbps). WHAT!!!!
• The day we upgraded our plan, I saw a weird problem. Almost all the pages I opened up, it had an annoying advertisement. I was frustrated, and tried to hunt down the problem. I re-installed my browsers, un-installed all my browser add-ons, but still the problem persisted. After a few more investigations, to my horror, I found that Ortel Communications was injecting this piece of advertisement on each and every page, by intercepting my requests.
• I started writing mails to them on the e-mail addresses provided on their website. Hahaha, I knew what would happen next. 2 out of the 3 recipients mail bounced back. And for the one recipient, I haven't heard back yet. I kept on doing this for 5 days, yet I haven't received even an acknowledgement.
• I did a Google search to find out if anyone else has this problem. Of course, Ortel has it's monopoly in Bhubaneswar.  I found almost everyone was having the same problem.

There is a thread here where you can find more people complaining. You would find a few interesting stories as well.  I had never thought that an ISP would do something like this. When I asked one of the customer care guys about this, they said that they do this because Ortel is providing internet connection in rural areas at a lower cost, and so they had to compensate for it by adopting this. WHAT!!!!! You are awesome Ortel communications. Great going.

By the way, here's the code that they injecting into every website that you visit.  They get their ads onto our webpages by using this script.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ui.streamride.net/ui.js"></script>

This is almost equal to cheating the customers. I don't really care if they are getting some extra revenue. It's just so annoying to see those ads all the time. Here is a sample of how those ads look like on your browsers. This is, in my view, breach of privacy and security and cheating.

New ways of cheating

Recently, there has been a truck loads of new ways of cheating people. I have, once fallen into their trap but I realized very quickly. You should have heard about SpeakAsia scam which was recently in news. Hahaha, that's not the one I fell for. There has been a whole lot of similar scams in the past. People, smart people, sometimes fall into their trap and end up losing their hard earned money.

One of the terribly pathetic and ugly trap is a program which is being aired on NDTV Imagine channel. The program is "Gold Safe". This program, shows some images of well-known personalities and ask people to call in and recognize them. When I was in college, some 5 years back, I was lured into calling in. I must have spent at least 100 bucks that day. And, quite obviously, I didn't win a dime. Someone who has the ability of adding up 2 2-digit numbers without a calculator would never fall into their trap. But, that day, I just thought of giving it a try. I mean, who would not be able to recognize "Priety Zinta"!!!!! People were continuously calling in and blurting out seemingly absurd answers. The images have been always too obvious for someone to give a wrong answer.

The next one is in the form of an E-mail. There's a website which promises you really great discounts on some of their products. The website is "Bag it today". It seems to be affiliated to "The Indian Today Group". Atleast, the website shows it's logo.

Almost everyday, I receive a mail from this website. Here is a sample e-mail that I received today.

Welcome Kumar,

Congratulations! You have just received 5 products including Reebok Tracksuit,
Numero Uno Watch, Satyapaul Leather Wallet, Lotto Duffle Bag and
Converse T-shirt worth Rs 10442 at Re 5.

The catch here seemed to be this: You could get all these things at a final price of Rs.2999/- only. Seems to be a really cool deal. But, be warned, this is too good to be true. Please don't fall for it. People have, and have repented. If at all, you want to see if it's a real deal, opt for "Cash on Delivery".

I am certainly not saying that all these websites/services that promise you discounts are fake and scams. There are really great services, such as SnapDeal.com where you would get real discounts and deals. But please don't fall into obvious looking traps.

One more scam worth mentioning is the "Free T-shirt scam" that made rounds on Facebook recently. I mean, it was quite obvious to me that it was a scam, but many people still went ahead and gave them their phone numbers, email addresses and postal addresses. None of them have received their free t-shirts yet.

The other category of scams, which I think nobody will ever fall for are those e-mails that you receive from complete strangers who have found a fortune somehow(people make up real good stories, I read it for fun), and want to transfer it to your country to avoid getting caught, and promise you a large stock of bills for your assistance. Don't ever fall for it.

I don't expect the Government to do anything about these guys. They are probably busy handling their own scams. The best part is, unlike the government ones, you could choose not to be looted by these private scamsters and swindlers.

Weird Comment : Times of India

Here is an picture of a comment posted on an article on Times of India. Well, even after repeated mails to monitor and moderate such types of comments, they seem to be enjoying all these. For me, it's actually a bit surprising as to how can such a well known newspaper don't care about such things.

Very disappointing.

Kudos Times of India

A few years back, I liked the online version of The Times of India and it was perhaps the only place where I read the newspaper for sometime. As an effort towards saving paper, I had also stopped getting the paper Newspapers. I liked the site, and it was almost updated instantly whenever there was a new story for which you would have to wait for the next day's newspaper.

But, now, the Times Of India site sucks. I have written 2 mails to the editor, regarding my concerns, but nothing has happened yet, and probably nothing will change. These guys still want to sell news on the paper, whereas I thought that they would one day, try and reduce the amount of paper that they use up everyday.

Somethings that I don't like:

1. Ads everywhere: It takes almost a minute for the front page to open, and display some content.
2. The front page of the online version is just sexed up. It looks attractive, thats all, but it doesn't show quality content.
3. They have completely changed the meaning of Headlines. Any new news is a headline for them, and it appears right at the top.
4. When I open the website, I would expect to see the articles that would probably be seen on the paper newspaper. But, the online version, I guess, doesn't have a competent editor. Some guy who maintains the website, seems to be a self-proclaimed editor for the website, who actually doesn't know what should go where.
5. Videos. Aaahhh....I don't like the videos. Most of them are related to things which I would never like to see. And moreover, the videos start with 30 sec ads, yes each one of them.

I was pissed off when this article managed to get into the headlines of The Times of India, today morning.

Woman delivers a 'tweet' child

It might be interesting for some, and I congratulate the mother and the child, but this is definitely not an article for the Headlines of a so-called well known, a leading national newspaper.

I now wonder, if this kind of content that fetches them more money. Is this a well-researched method to generate readership for newspapers/magazines, in general? Do people actually enjoy reading such stories? I reckon, YES. So, then, it's not the newspapers to be blamed. I guess, the "golden" days were better, where every morning, we would eagerly wait for the morning newspaper and then fight over it with other family members, each trying to snatch away their favorite page of the newspaper, and then enjoy the morning tea. Now, It's all about money.

Don't walk into Khivraj Bajaj

I haven't yet got my Pulsar. And today, frustrated and fed up with their nonsense replies, I cancelled my booking. I even wrote a review on Google, of course, the worst one that I would ever write about anything.

I hope people don't rely on Khivraj Bajaj showrooms now. My experience with them was the worst that I ever had.

1st day: Sir, the bike will be delievered in 10 days. We are getting the new stock, 2010 models. We will call and let you know when the bike arrives.

10 days gone, no call, I called up.

10th day: Sir, We don't know the status. And the Bajaj people also have no updates as to when you can get your bike.

After 5 more days, still no call, I called up.

15th day: Sir the bikes are on the way from Pune, and they will arrive in 2 days. We will call you.

17th Day: Sir, the whole stock was Pulsar 150. You will have to wait for a week more to get your 180.

23rd day: Still no call, I called up.
Sir, You make the full payment on 2nd march and it will be delivered to you on 3rd. :)

Today: Still no call, WTF. I called up the last time.
Sir, the stock has come. But the stock was damaged and it will take some more days for the new stock.

F**k you. I walked down 4 kms, in the scorching heat to cancel the booking. The executive there had the same monotonous smile on her face as the first day. She said politely, sir, please write an application for cancellation, and we will prepare a cheque in 2-3 days. Once it is ready, WE WILL GIVE YOU A CALL. I know that call will never come.

Only I know how controlled my temper, and didn't shout on her face. And then, finally, when I was about to leave, she says "Thank you", and smiles. Aaargghh, I hate that smile.

Please don't ever go there. Here's the address.

Khivraj Bajaj,
2 & 10, 2nd Stage HAL,
100 Feet Road,
Indiranagar, Bangalore, 560038