Tata DoCoMo 3G — Terrible service, disconnections and awful customer care.

Address:

Bangalore, Karnataka

Witht the launch of 3G on Docomo, I went in for a new connection in January 2011. For the initial month or so, the connection was fine and data speeds, although not entirely satisfactory, were upto 600 to 700 Kbps. Then on the real thing started to show up. Data speeds were down to 100 Kbps and frequent loss of data connection reared its ugly head. For the last month or so, the data connection kept dropping every 2 to 3 hours. Now comes the most annoying part - Customer Care! Every time I call them, they have a phrase to say "I'm sorry for the inconvenience". Well, you should be but then its not been resolved or bettered in any way. After about 10 calls and 4 logged complaints, they kept promising that things will be sorted within 48 hours, which 48 hours and what month of what year is anybody's guess!

Now, for the last 3 days, there's no 3G data connection at all and the same "48 hours" promise keeps getting thrown at me every time I call. I even went to the extent of hard-resetting my Android device (I wish I hadn't) thinking it might just be a device problem but no luck there either as it clearly was a network issue. Subsequent calls proved that the people at Docomo Customer Care a re completely ineligible and ignorant when it comes to understanding an issue. They kept telling me to manually do a network search and select 'UMTS' and then restart my phone and it would solve the issue. How on earth was I supposed to make them understand that I'd tried all possible fixes and troubleshooting techniques before finally giving up and calling their awful Customer Care. Its the 4th day since I do not have a data connection and I have to select the 2G network and use the super-slow and almost unusable EDGE data while paying for 3G data. Also, no number of complaints seems to work or get them to fix what clearly is an embarrassing level of service they have been providing! Also, inspite of data not working, I keep losing hundreds, yes hundreds, of MB from my data balance and that doesn't seem to bother them either. There's a limit to how much of a whacker you can be, Docomo seems to whack people off money and keep a straight face at the same time.

The strange thing is, when I go to other parts of the city, th 3G data works fine. That does not mean I live in a remote part of the city, I live in one of the busiest parts of Bangalore and this is the service I've been putting up with.
I'll give Docomo and myself 2 more days and if it continues, I might just switch to another network. There is a certain degree of shoddiness you can put up with, this is way beyond that degree.