Airtel is very gross and shady in Customer support

I am having severe Network problems since 2 or more months on my Airtel Prepaid . I am getting 0.1 Mbps Down and 0.5 Mbps Up on the Speedtest . I did not about bother it much until recently due to Home Broadband , however in the last few days I needed 4G speeds I tried contacting Airtel 121 with a actual person and the IVRS just doesnt connect .

So I thought of a trick . I sent a port request on my number to 1900
The Airtel guy then called asking what`s the issue when I opened a port request and all he did was opened a ticket.

But the point is not the service . this shows how much Airtel has fallen for cheap cost cutting tricks and has totally closed Prepaid customer care

Their app is just getting crappier day by day which doesnt have any support whereas Airtel says the issues can be resolved from there

Is VI any better at this after their Integration ?

IMO covid has been a convenient excuse for bad customer support across various industries.

I am also thinking about VI. Their unlimited 699 postpaid plan seems very attractive. I saw some speed tests on youtube and it's around 15-50 ish mbps speed which honestly surprised me. What is the catch here I wonder cause won't everybody opt for VI instead of adsl if that was the case. My bsnl adsl gives like 3.3mpbs on speed test. So, idk anymore.

If you've a network issue, don't expect them to fix it. Just port out to a better operator.

Is VI any better at this after their Integration ?

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No, It is not. They have made it insanely difficult to contact a real person. If you manage to get hold of a real person and make your complaint, They'll tell you, they are working on a problem, Give you a date by which the issue should be resolved and it's just not resolved. So you complain again and the same thing over and over. I am trying to get them to fix their network in my area and the experience has been pretty terrible so far. :/

riju said:

I am also thinking about VI. Their unlimited 699 postpaid plan seems very attractive. I saw some speed tests on youtube and it's around 15-50 ish mbps speed which honestly surprised me. What is the catch here I wonder cause won't everybody opt for VI instead of adsl if that was the case. My bsnl adsl gives like 3.3mpbs on speed test. So, idk anymore.

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You absolutely have to obey their CUP otherwise they'll kick you out. Acc. to their CUP, If you use more than 150GB data, You must also have 50 minutes of incoming call(before you hit 150gb in data). No catch other than that. I have asked their CS on twitter, email and their 198 helpline to know more about 699/1099 plans and all of them say the same thing.

riju said:

I am also thinking about VI. Their unlimited 699 postpaid plan seems very attractive. I saw some speed tests on youtube and it's around 15-50 ish mbps speed which honestly surprised me. What is the catch here I wonder cause won't everybody opt for VI instead of adsl if that was the case. My bsnl adsl gives like 3.3mpbs on speed test. So, idk anymore.

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Don't switch to operator based on results you saw on youtube. There is bit of survialship bias there and you are not probably not seeing the true picture of how things will be in your area. Get a prepaid sim card first, Do a bunch of speed tests, Signal strength checks in different times of the day(and areas you frequent) then figure out if it's good enough that you'd want to switch to postpaid.

ishanjain28 said:

You absolutely have to obey their CUP otherwise they'll kick you out. Acc. to their CUP, If you use more than 150GB data, You must also have 50 minutes of incoming call(before you hit 150gb in data). No catch other than that. I have asked their CS on twitter, email and their 198 helpline to know more about 699/1099 plans and all of them say the same thing.

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Thats a very weird condition. Shouldn't they be more happy that I am not using one of their service even though I am paying for it? It's like free money for them in a sense. But, thanks for telling me. Does this call have to be from different people at different times and days or can I just make someone call me for 1 hour and thats done?

Samuel said:

If you've a network issue, don't expect them to fix it. Just port out to a better operator.

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Well there has to be a another operator or two in the arena in the coming years to cater to such a vast population

In short everyone is the same ... I've had Airtel , Jio running ... Nothing is perfect ... VI which again gets bad feedback ...remains what ?

This country has a 2nd largest population all over the world ...Do the telecom companies even know how strong their network should be to cater this ?

I can understand your frustration. Even I'm experiencing a lot of issues with Airtel. But I've a backup number on Vodafone, so I make a balance by using Duo or the other number.

Kya karey 🤷‍♂️

riju said:

Thats a very weird condition. Shouldn't they be more happy that I am not using one of their service even though I am paying for it? It's like free money for them in a sense. But, thanks for telling me. Does this call have to be from different people at different times and days or can I just make someone call me for 1 hour and thats done?

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It's not really weird. They are trying to ensure people don't abuse their plan.

@riju I dont know about ur state , but here in kerala vi is very good where their integration is completed. They even deployed lte 900 in urban areas where congestion is there. With a proper carrier aggregation u can expect speeds ranging from 30 to 50 mbps indoor . In fact I used both airtel and jio and the highest 4g speeds ever I got was with vi, ie 100mbps on single band 41. Depending on ur state and the spectrum allocation their experiences may vary.

As for airtel they are going downhill, I cannot use vi since they didn't complete their integration in my current place so I have taken airtel, and my experience is worse , I can actually predict now when my 4g goes to 2g well most of the time its 2g . It was not like this before here. I complained against them in pg portal and they closed my complaint saying local authorities are not permitting them to do an upgrade or something .The irony is they shouldn't do anything, all they have to do is optimize the already reframed 3g spectrum band 1 to 4g and enable carrier aggregation with it giving better coverage . They don't even want to do that simple task , and they are giving fake ads like zero questions , since they cannot answer my simple question

Is there any website where I can get all operators` nearby Tower data stats , location in my PC (I cannot use a mobile for that)

@shashankb The problem here is, There are maybe half a dozen apps/services for this. none of them share data with each other so depending on where you live, you may find lots of network/tower related data in one app and nothing in some other app.

Most of them dont have a website. You have to use their apps. Some of these apps/services are, Opensignal, Cellmapper, NetMonster, LTEDiscovery, Airtel's own website for their network.

I think there is one particular site where u give location stats they will email u the nearby tower stats , actually forgot its name