Mobile and internet woes

Morung Express editorial

http://morungexpress.com/mobile-and-internet-woes/

Have you ever heard on your phone, ‘Sorry for the inconvenience of our poor network, we are refunding the amount to your balance’? Absolutely never! You pay for every dropped call and lack of voice clarity. For phone calls which are received but you are not able to talk because of poor network, you pay each and every time. Even though the network is as bad as a Chinese radio station signal, the telecom providers’ ability to cut your balance is Mach 3 razor sharp. Sometimes, you don’t see any signal and your call didn’t go through, but somehow they manage to cut your balance.

When there is a drizzle, the 3G signals seem to be pulled down by the tiny water droplets. When there is heavy rain, even the 2G signals are flushed down the drains. But 4G advertisements are starting to come out. The commercials will get louder and louder until you are brainwashed to think that if you don’t get 4G, your life is incomplete. So, before we had a proper 2G, we jumped to 3G and with a 3G signal which is shaken by a light breeze or blocked by a darkened window glass, we are entering the 4G era.

The months are all of 28 days duration according to some telecom operators. When you subscribe to an internet plan, the monthly rental is for 28 days only. For them, it is always February. And there are ways to make you pay without letting you use what you pay for. The weak signals guarantee that you are not able to use up your monthly plan. And when your plan is about to expire, you are bombarded with advertisements of various attractive plans so that you keep on renewing and keep on paying. Some services are in auto-renewal mode that unless you make them stop, they keep cutting the amount monthly from your main balance. The sarcasm here I think is not out of place or beyond permissible limit, considering the nerve irritation and the high blood pressure which the telecom companies manage to induce.

The marketing of various products doesn’t seem to be built on the spirit of transparency and service to people. The small asterisks (*) indicating ‘conditions apply’ and various other terms and conditions in small prints carry a very different meaning when contrasted with their TV commercials. Conscientious customers need to be wary all the time about cheating and exploitation, so that we are not taken for a ride.

Whole government systems have been built relying on the telecom services. Individuals are also developing a dependency on them. Without a phone or internet, we would be seriously handicapped. Their services are vital for the functioning of governments and individual lives. Telecommunication is a good product of human progress which has been pushing our civilization forward. Having made our world and us so dependent on them, it is crucial that we have good telecom services. The quality of their services and the ethics of their dealings are matters which must be looked into with concern. Although many of them are private enterprises, the public goods which they deliver must be subject to a system of close scrutiny and accountability. Sadly, this has been an area of massive corruption, as in the 2G scam recently.

North East circle, and in our case Nagaland, have suffered injustice when it comes to mobile and internet service. Although we pay as much, the quality of services is not commensurate. Our weakness is in our inability to express our grievances, and this I think is taken advantage of. The telecom companies have made our lives better. But it is a fact that we have not got a fair deal.