SRINAGAR: Cellular network, Idea, has for the moment, shut its data services in Kashmir following the light rain and snowfall much to the discomfort of its subscribers. The data services on the cellular network have been stalled for the past three days with no clear indications whether the network would get operational in the near future.
“Upon calling the customer care service, the executive on the other end of the phone informed that the ‘bad weather’ had thrown the cellular network out of gear,” said Iftikhar Qureshi, a subscriber. “When I asked would my service validity be extended, the exective responded with a blunt negative.”
“Upon informing how other providers have maintained their services despite bad other, the executive had no answer,” said Qureshi. “She put me on hold for a long time and I had no choice but to hang up.”
Furious at the quality of services prvided by the cellular company, another subscriber said that the Idea slogan ‘An idea can change your life’ seems to have turned on its head. “Yes, Idea has changed my life but for the worse because I feel frustrated at the quality of the services being provided by the company.”
He said the network strength of Idea is so poor that I get the signal in specific rooms of my house not to talk about the coverage in some areas of the Srinagar city.
Idea is a pan-India integrated GSM operator offering 2G and 3G services, and ranks the third largest mobile operator in the country. Idea ranks among the top 10 country operators in the world with a traffic of over 1.5 billion minutes a day.
The company’s website boasts: “At Aditya Birla Group, Integrity is defined as: Acting and taking decisions in a manner that is fair, honest, following the highest standards of professionalism and also perceived to be so. Integrity for us means not only financial and intellectual integrity, but in all other forms as are commonly understood.”
Cellular companies operating in Kashmir have been known for their inferior quality as far as their services are concerned. The companies have discovered a perefect alibi in the weather here as a slight drizzle shuts the services more often than not.
To add insult to the injury, when a subscriber tries to contact the customer care, he is made to listen to all sorts of nonsensical music and offers and those in a little haste have no choice but to hang up.
Eversince, floods came to Kashmir, all the companies operating here are coming up with an excuse that floods have damaged their infrastructure and the subscribers are asked to bear with whatever is on offer at the moment.
ata Teleservices, another cellular company after losing its license of CDMA spectrum in Jammu and Kashmir following a Supreme Court order had to shutdown its telecom service in 2013. The company had failed to collect higher revenue from the state due to very low amount of subscribers which was near about 1.13 lakh.
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