Broadband, Sundae, Real Estate, Telephones, Banking : An Update from Hyderabad

Beam Broadband : I ordered this service atmost 4 weeks ago and am yet to see any movement on this. The company called me a couple of times to schedule installation and never showed up. Hope they will show up some day and now that I have my primary broadband through sify, I am not too worried about them.

Sify Broadband : This is my primary provider now and the service has been excellent so far. Had 2 issues and 1 issue was fixed within 30 mins. The 2nd issue was related to bad weather and looks like a tree fell and severed the fiber connectivity to our neighborhood. This took them almost 18 hours to fix and my vonage service was down during this time. The best part is that SIFY people were courteous enough to call me and update me about the progress and when the service was up.

Network Services : Vonage works well on SIFY if the internet is up, VPN, remote desktoping to US from india are working very well. while there is some lag from home, its no different than remote desktop from the office facilities in Hyderabad.

Sundae/Desserts : Based on my previous story about Ohri's Hyderabad and its sundae's, my wife tried the awful awful sundae as a Lunch Replacement.. dont ask me that story ;-).. She says its "awesome".. so, go try it and email me your feedback. We also tried various others with names like lovers paradise, tall lady and lewinsky... this has now turned into a regular session to unwind after a busy day of work.

Telephones : Though the providers have matured over the last couple of years, they still keep adding subscribers without additional capacity. One other challenge you will face is that the roaming agreements are not that good so, you may loose connectivity when you are far away from the city.

Banking : ICICI bank account is fully operational after a long struggle to prove my address, and I am happy with the netbanking services they provide. Even bill pay, trading and other services are available along with SMS notifications for account activities like checks/withdrawals etc. I applied for a Demat+Trading account and waiting for that to be activated. These services require tons of paperwork and have extensive beauracracy tied to them. Banking institutions tried the mcdonald's "dumb it down " principle .. so, no one wants to think beyond the box.. an live example was a friend of mine who tried to cash 2 checks at ICICI. The teller asked him to get 2 separate tokens to cash these checks. The first token flashed on counter #X, and his second token flashed on counter #Y within 30 seconds of the first... He is yet to figure out a way to use 2 counters at once... This is normally how the indian companies deal with operations and customer service..

When i run into folks like Beam Cable Installer, ICICI bank and the many other service providers that never keep their word and ask for wierd documentation..., I remind myself that I have come here with very low expectations ... and that helps me stay cool.... I see the issues, laugh and move on.. Life has been entertaining and relaxed in Hyderabad so far.