Another interesting (it didn't feel that way then) was the wi-fi access.
I was in room/suite 302 (don't take this room if you go to this place, and want wi-fi ). This one is tucked away at the corner of the building. Getting into the room - which is very nice by the way, I saw a placard displaying rates for a wifi access with 256 kbps downstream internet access speed.
It was something like Rs. 400 (about $8) for 12 hrs of usage. I called up reception, and he readily created an id for me, and asked me to logon to an ISP's (BharatNet.net) website, and enter my username/password.
That sounded fine - but my laptop wasn't seeing that wireless network. It was seeing a couple of password protected networks in the neighbouring buildings, but no Bharat net. I told this to the reception. By the time all this happened, it was around 12:00 am. He hooked me upto the tech guy, and the guy asked me the usual troubleshooting questions.
Finally, he said I could use a cable and use the port in the ante room of the suite. I wasn't too inclined to sit anywhere other than the bedroom where I was comfortably watching TV. The ante room too, has a TV. But I figured out quickly it was for display only. It wasn't hooked upto anything. :)
The tech guy says "I'll call you back in 10 minutes sir" . This was around 12:15 am.
I waited and finally went to sleep around 1 am.
The next night, the same story went on from about 10pm to 12:00 am. Then I relented and asked the guy to send me a cable, and that I'd sit in the other room and surf. I really needed to check mails at the office, in case any fires were on.
The network cable came, and I was connected. I went to the ISP's portal and logged in. It logged me in, welcomed me. But even after 15 min.. no access to the internet. I was thinking it will probably enable the required gateways to give me access.. but no. So I call back the front desk and he says 'oh sir, power outage.. even we've lost the internet connection. If you wait for 10 -15 min more, it should be on'. You'll probably guess what happened next - again I waited till 1 am and went to sleep.
The third night.. I briefly tried to see if something was on. It wasn't. So, I just called up the reception, and told him I finally didn't get any connection. That the wireless access points probably didn't have the range to reach this room. He was again sorry, and apologized for the inconvenience, etc. I also reminded him that since I didn't have even 1 minute of internet access, he definitely shouldn't be charging me for it.
He almost sounded hurt that I should even bother to make that suggestion. Something to the effect of "Of course not, Sir. We're very sorry for the inconvenience caused, and we definitely wouldn't be charging you for this!" came loud and clear through the phone.
Next morning, I checked out and was presented the bill at the front desk. They had charged me for the wi-fi internet access.
A deep breath later, I spoke .. and pretty calmly. There again were a lot of 'of course sir' , "we're sorry sir's .. and a new checkout statement was generated without the charges.
I bid them goodbye and walked out to haggle with the autorickshaw guys.
No comments:
Post a Comment