Below is a letter that might be relevant to Sancharnet subscribers. In hindsight, one forgot to raise the issue of difficulties in renewing Sancharnet accounts too. Often the password codes don't seem to work, one has difficulties in purchasing the renewal coupons (during limited office hours) and such other complications make life further difficult for subscribers. In contrast, VSNL offers the possibility of renewing via the ATM machines of ICICI Bank, with no difficulties involved. FN
Commercial Officer (HQ), Office of the General Manager, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Goa Telecom District Goa Sanchar Bhavan 3 EDC, Patto Plaza Panjim 403001 Re: Telephone Adalat, Internet services in Goa Sir, At the outset, let me state that I am one of the first Internet subscribers to your service (then manned by VSNL) in the state of Goa. My subscription dates back to around August 1997, when Net services were first introduced in this state. Due to the poor and deteriorating quality of services, together with the repeated changes in email addresses, however, I was compelled to not just try out other options, but also raise the issue in the consumers' forum. Needless to say, however, I am still your subscriber with username fred Through these lines, I wish to draw your attention to continuing lacunae in your Internet services in Goa. Among the problem areas are: QUALITY OF SERVICE: The Internet service seems to lack sufficiently equipped staff, as it once had during the days of engineers Jambli and Jadhon. As of now, whenever there is a problem, the section often fails to understand what is being said. Their first response is to try and convince the subscriber that the problem is at his or her end, rather than at the server level, as is often the case. REPEATED CHANGE OF EMAIL ADDRESSES: This has been a major issue in the past, and our addresses have changed from [EMAIL PROTECTED] to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to [EMAIL PROTECTED] An email address is much like your identity; try changing your name once every year and see the disastrous effects it can have. Yet, we are not complaining here just because we have grown sentimental about retaining our email identity. As a freelance journalist, it causes immense difficulty whenever I need to change an email address. There are two reasons here. First, because my articles are published in diverse places on the Net -- and anyone trying to use the old email address to contact me simply cannot do so. On the other hand, if you subscribe to dozens of mailing lists -- like some of us do -- you can post to each only in the same email address you're subscribed on. So you could well imagine the difficulties that crop up whenever an email address changes. We have changed email addresses four times in as many years. My suggestion is that whenever any email address changes, the changes should be not retrospective, i.e. only new subscribers should be affected. In addition, BSNL needs to should the responsibility of forwarding mail for the subscriber even on the old address, as the changes were made not due to any fault of the subscriber. SERVER WOES: BSNL's server in Goa is badly configured and poorly maintained. It is often the case that subscribers are unable to send outgoing mail or receive incoming mail. In addition, poorly configured return-DNS servers etc mean that a number of servers reject mail from Sancharnet.in's Goa server, causing great inconvenience to subscribers. If you wish to have more details about this, I can send you a detailed dialogue between servers to back up my statement above. SUPPORT FOR NON-WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEMS: Your staff appears to be equipped to deal only with supporting Windows-based systems. There is also a need to support subscribers using other OSs, such as the Free GNU/Linux OS. If you need the assistance, the India Linux Users Group (Goa), which I am part of, is willing to volunteer its help in building FAQs (frequently-asked questions) guides or offer, without cost, training to BSNL staff in any sector you wish to train on. Professional training is also available elsewhere. VIRII: Lack of virus filters causes a whole lot of junk to enter our mailboxes. On the other hand, poorly configured settings sometimes marks off even plaintext files as virii! Something obviously needs to be done. ERROR WHILE FETCHING MAIL: The message I get often is --- Host lookup failed: wmma.sancharnet.,in: Name or service not known. CHANGES NOT INTIMATED: Changes made to the settings at the server level are often not intimated on time, and in advance, to the subscribers, putting them to inconvenience. PROPER HELP FACILITY: It is often difficult to get across to poersons who know the technical issues, when problems arise, specially during the night hours. As Goa's largest ISP, the subscribers have a right to expect better quality of service. SPAM FILTERING: A higher and more effective level of spam filtering -- which is even provided by free ISPs as Gmail and Yahoogroups -- is expected from Sancharnet. Action at the earliest would help to not only to make life easier for us, but also improve the quality of service of your Internet Service Provider, and hence inspire more customers to repose their faith in your service.
