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| Friday, January 19, 2007 |
| New Delhi DishTV dealer admits to not picking up phone |
This is what, the fourth instalment of my adventures with DishTV? For the earlier instalments, go here or click on the DTH label at the bottom of this post.
Okay, so I called up DishTV customer service to complain about CNN-IBN not being shown. The voice menu thingy did not allow me to enter in my VC card number - so I opted for talking to a customer service executive, who came online pretty quickly.
What he told me was, my DishTV service is not activated yet. Yes, I am getting a lot of channels, but they seem to be some kind of preview, not the real thing. And why is that so? Because DishTV has not received the forms from my dealer. Wow.
Then, yesterday, my wife went to the dealer. He admitted the forms have not been sent. He was like, why do you bother, with or without the forms, you will get the service activated anyway. So why was all his 4 telephone numbers just ringing? Initially he said that the phones were out of order, bla blah, and then admitted that it is because customers keep calling up and complaining. Such honesty.
This, all you nice people will agree, is as good a time as any to reveal the name of the dealer. Dear people, it is Mr Amit Dua of Dolphin Gold Service, Green Park market, New Delhi.
This does not mean that the guy is at fault for not getting my DishTV service activated. Maybe the men who came to my place to install the dish and set-top box are not his employees. Maybe they have not bothered to give him the filled out forms. I don't know. But the man admitted to not picking up 4 separate phones for fear of customers. Something, definitely, is rotten in Subash Chandra's company.
Today, I shall call up DishTV again and file something like a formal complaint. Without formal activation of services, DIshTV is under no obligation to answer my questions on why a channel is not available, why can't I do this or that etc.
The more problems that arise, the more interesting blogging gets. I am sure this long term blogging of my DishTV experience will help many take a decision. Mind you, I am totally sceptical of TataSky too - and will try to get someone to install TataSky and take us thtough his adventures too.
Click on the DTH label below this post to read all the posts on my DishTV experience.Labels: DTH |
posted by a correspondent @ 11:24 PM   |
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| Thursday, January 18, 2007 |
| DishTV preview working - activation soon |
I checked the DishTV services around 10 PM today - that's the day when the dish was installed on my rooftop. It was working! Initially I thought it was the full thing - all channels and whatnot. It turned out to be the preview, when I called up Customer Service, they said that they have not yet received the data from the dealer. No matter, I shall wait.
The interesting thing is the picture quality. My ancient AKAI seems to have been reincarnated! The picture quality is uniformly good on most channels I checked, and Bigg Boss, of which I was a regular watcher before CAS struck, looks much better with more details in the shadows and better skintones. The programme, though, has become a big bore.
DishTV has some games built in - everything looked boring, except for the racing game. Once I started it, it looked cheapo too. I mean ultra cheapo.
The Dish Interactive (I think that's what its called), was useful so you can browse through the headlines (in text) and choose channels from a pile of windows etc. Nothing overly exciting there, but seeing stuff from 8 channels on one screen gives you that cool high tech feeling.
What do I not like? The channels take a bit of time to change - less than a second - but its perceptible and irritating. The other is the remote -- useful alright, but it has to be pointed in the general direction of the set top box - point it at the TV and it may or may not work.
The radio channels are cute - some of them are channels I have not listened to since 10th in school. I even managed to hear a bit when the Malayalam radio channel announced her presence - one Sushama - after whom I think my dad named my sister. Or maybe it was another Sushama.
Will keep this updated as I learn more about the set top box, its functionalities, DishTV customer care and services.
To read the earlier parts of this long term review of DishTV DTH in India, click below:
DTH - all the posts
DishTV installation goes all fine
Dishtv installation and activation: Dealer does not pick up the phone
DishTV review Part 1: Buying DishTV in New Delhi
Labels: DTH |
| posted by a correspondent @ 10:28 AM |
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| DishTV installation goes all fine |
Immediately after I wrote the last post, there was a phone call from DishTV customer care asking me if everything is okay. I told the girl that nobody had come so far to install the dish and set-top box - and she said she would talk to the local dealer of DishTV in Green Park Market, New delhi from where I had bought the box.
Minutes after that, the door bell rang and it was the DishTV men. One looked all around the terrace and expressed doubts about the location and direct line of sight to the satellite etc. The other took a quick leak, and went about his job. In some 30-40 minutes, they had installed the satellite dish.
The dish is installed on the roof, so I could not check the signal strength. However, the men told me that its at 70-85 % -- which according to them is quite good.
They asked for some ID proof. I had to run down and get a photocopy of the PAN card. So if you are going to get DishTV, better you keep proof of identification handy.
I got some extra cable to be on the safe side if I need to move the TV around. That cost some rs 150 approx. It came to a total of Rs 650. No cheating involved, I think.
Anyway I noticed the first problem straightaway. The DishTV remote can adjust the volume alright, but it is constrained by the prior volume of the TV. So if the TV volume is already low, the maximum volume you get with the DishTV remote too will be low. And if I raise the TV volume to the max so the DishTV remote can adjust it the way it wants, my TV makes an annoying hissing sound from the speakers. I guess some middle ground has to be found for the volume settings.
DishTV activation is going to take more time. The girl on the phone told me it could be 24 to 48 hours -- 48 hours?! WTF. I will crib online till if anyone searches for DishTV in google, my crib pages would be the first to come up!
Anyway so now I have the free channels - pretty much what I had pre-DishTV. There are quite a few radio channels in decent sound quality. And the picture quality, even on my ancient AKAI, is quite decent. To really see the difference, I will have to go in for an LCD TV or something mroe modern than the junk I have now. So see you tomorrow with the updates on my DishTV experience.
DishTV review Part 1
DishTV review Part 2Labels: DTH |
| posted by a correspondent @ 5:06 AM |
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| Dishtv installation and activation: Dealer does not pick up the phone |
Yesterday, he was very quick to tell us that the guys would be home for installation by 2:30. It is 4 PM now, and no sign of them. More interesting is, the landline and mobile numbers on the dealer's visiting card are ringing, but nobody seems to be picking up the phone. Maybe this is still too early to complain - so I shall wait till night to see if someone turns up for the installation. I don't think there is any point in calling the Distv custoemr service numbers now. Installation of the set-top box and dish is the dealer's job -- anyway, he had told us call him today in case of any problem. But a phone on silent mode is always a good idea! Labels: DTH |
| posted by a correspondent @ 2:38 AM |
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| Wednesday, January 17, 2007 |
| DishTV review Part 1: Buying DishTV in New Delhi |
So DishTV it was going to be.
Post New Year 2007, no channels. Mt ancient AKAI box looks pathetic usually; with nothing worth watching on it, it is a real sad specimen. I wanted stuff to happen in a different sequence. First get rid of the ancient TV box, even if for Rs 500/-, and then get a new TV. A new TV better make its presence felt and reflect my middle-age financial status and show-offiness - so it had to be a LCD or Plasma or an RPTV, and with a minimum screen size of 32". And then go for CAS or DTH. Alas this was not to be - TRAI jacked me on Jan 1, and I had to do something - LCD TV etc could cost from 50,000 above, and my mind is not going to made up easily on which TV to buy. I chose the easier option - choosing between cable set top box, TataSky or DishTV.
With that in mind, I started reading up stuff - reviews of DishTv and TataSky. I went through Mouthshut, Google Blogsearch and Google, and read up whatever stuff they dished out on Business Standard and Rediff on DTH services in India.
What did I make out of all that? TataSky seems to be on a major ad blitz - and everyone seems to be very impressed by that. But in the end, they have fewer channels than DishTV. Strike One for DishTV.
Picture quality - not that this is going to make any difference on my AKAI - but a larger percent of the reviews said that DishTV picture quality was slightly inferior to TataSky. Hmm. So that is something that will matter to me later, if not now. Given the fact that TataSky has been around for only 2 weeks (in the metros, after CAS), I don't know how the reviewers managed to compare the picture quality of both the services. Quality could be better on either TataSky or DishTV on any given day due to any number of factors from technology to more clouds or whatever. Not to mention the television used. Anyway, thats strike one for TataSky.
Service quality. Reviewers keep talking about slightly better service quality on TataSky - but I am truly sceptical. You deal with a call center, and the less said about the effectiveness of a call center executive the better. It is like trying to rank loos based on which smells better. No points to anyone there.
Installation and time. TataSky has a bad reputation here - there are horror stories in the papers daily about how they are stretched, and examples where it has taken ten days after purchase. DishTV, on account of a lower-key-marketing strategy, has probably seen less demand - and are faster. At least that is my conclusion for now. We shall track their progress in the next few parts of this review. Big strike and evil on the face of DishTV.
CNN- IBN. I need this TV channel, not because I am a fan of Rajdeep or the atrocious Sagarika Ghose or anything, but because when I get irritated by NDTV anchors, I need to see a different kind of weirdness and over-the-topness somewhere. TimesNow is just hilarious for me, I can hardly treat it as a news channel. Headlines Today, the less said the better. There seems to be major muleheadedness going on in TataSky or CNN-IBN regarding the channel appearing on TataSky, and whatever the hell it is, I want that channel now so I can go back to hating Rajdeep. DishTV scores here.
User interface. Reviewers seem to like the TataSky interface better. I am not much bothered about it, after dealing with music system interfaces with buttons and dials. But anyway what the hell - TataSky scores there.
Future - the reviewers seem to be biased in favour of TataSky here. With some justification - they can seem Murdoch's shadow and like it. I see Subash Chandra behind DishTV and do not like that. Anyway, it is too vague. I don't care about the future - if it becomes clearly evident that one service is better than the other, I would happily throw out whichever I own. No winners here.
So I chose DishTV. Quick installation (we shall see about that!) and CNN-IBN on it made the decision for me.
So wifey and I went to the dealer in Green Park main market, near to our home. The boy with the brochures outside told us that he could give us a demo only later, and he is closing down, could we kindly go inside, and only after giving him our names so he could take the credit for convincing and bringing in a new customer. I like assholes with balls, so I gave him the details.
We went in. The guys seem to have TataSky and DishTV boxes. The main in charge assued us that the installation would happen in 24 hours, he has only 2 installations tomorrow, blah blah. And later he added that after installation, it takes another 24 hours for activation. Whatever. So my 24 hour period is now 48. Let's see how it goes tomorrow. The guy at the shop did not know how to make a proper bill for the set-top box, and so we just paid him the Rs 1300, got the set top box, and walked out. The installation guys should come with the Dish and cables and whatever else tomorrow - so shall keep this running commentary going. If you are interested in reading up my travails or success story as I go on, you can bookmark this page. I will be adding the link for the next part here tomorrow. Cheers!Labels: DTH |
| posted by a correspondent @ 6:57 AM |
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