This I need to say - technically the Airtel broadband connection was just fine, though not as fast as the Hathway link, it stayed up all the time. Their technicians could have done a better job with the wiring but I guess that is sub-contracted. So I did all the wiring again.

The fun part is when the bills start coming in. First, they are difficult to understand. Next, there is no online usage monitoring. And finally, all sorts of add-on charges start appearing.

So, after about 5 months, I asked for the service to be terminated. At that juncture, I got the run-around for a month, and so I just stopped using it and paying, so then it got disconnected. Fair enough? Now it is almost 5 months since I sent the first termination request. (At that juncture, some silly girl in the call centre told me it will take 35-45 days for the connection to be terminated!!) And Airtel says I am a defaulting subscriber, with unpaid bills. Is that true, asked I, since I have another Airtel connection in the same premises?

No. That is not correct. As per TRAI, a request for termination needs to be followed by a bill that includes adjustment of the security amount. It is there on the TRAI website. MTNL follows the practice. So if you get any bill after placing a request for termination which does not adjust the security,, then it becomes a disputed bill, not an unpaid bill. In my case, Airtel demands the outstanding as well as all sorts of other charges including re-connection charge and registration charge! But not a peep about the security to be returned.

The usual collection agency types come to the house, ring up the office, and try to play the usual goon games. The best solution here is to be polite with them, give them a glass of water, take their photo,  and ask them to provide you with a copy of the final bill. And then fire off long eMails to Airtel, TRAI, media, Consumer-VOICE, and others. Then Airtel will apologise. I have over a dozen apologies so far, I think.

But I still don’t have a "final bill".  And the goons keep calling up on the other number.

I think this is some sort of process within Airtel, put into place by their own middle-and-senior staff, to keep themselves and their goons gainfully employed. Because:-

a) A service can be disconnected immediately.
b) All the information Airtel asks for is already in the bill they raise.
c) Most of the time, the security deposit exceeds the final bill, and there is a payment due back to the customer.

But no, the jockeys sitting on the horses know that they will be out of work if the company follows a simple process, so they do all this stuff. I am going to see this one through to the bitter end.

Because: the total outstanding is just about 2-3 thousand rupees. And somebody needs to tell Airtel that if MTNL can do a termination so efficiently, then why not them?

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