After 21 days and an email to the CEO, Reliance Communications finally gave me a pre-activated GSM SIM Card with my number potted on to it. In fact it was delivered by one of the store managers to my office.
For those who just joined in, I have a small account of my issue on ranaonline.com. I was frustrated enough to create a website for it.
I was among the unlucky few who ported their number and were left hanging between the two service providers, old and new. It was strange that the providers were same in my case, Reliance Communications. I applied for number porting on the 2nd Feb, and when nothing happened, I enquirer on the 15th Feb by calling the Customer Care. The trouble started then.
The super excited CSE marked my number for porting, which means he shut the service from Reliance CDMA end. I could not have known about it till the 16th Feb afternoon because I was able to make calls and send messages from my CDMA set, but wasn’t receiving any SMS or calls. I thought this was one of those lucky days when the marketing guys forget that you exist!
I tried to call everyone since then. Customer Care was the first step, calling them every day to find out the status of the process. Their favourite answer was that we have escalated your request and it will be processed ASAP. There was no one who was willing to take the onus of getting it done ASAP. I tried to speak to the Managers but that didn’t work. I wrote the the Customer Support email address but no one answered.
I realised that I had to do something beyond that. I wrote to the Nodal Officer. No Response. I wrote to the Appellate Officer. No Response.
I didn’t know what could I do beyond that. I tried to call the Nodal Officer and the Appellate Officer. Their numbers were answered by a lady who said that the email queries were handled by a third person and gave me a number that was not answered.
It had been about 20 days. While I had another Vodafone number that was working fine and I could be reached by those who I wanted to reach to me, it was the messages that I was more worried for. I had this Reliance number since last 8 years. I had given this number to all the institutions who wanted to send messages to me. This list included all the banks, credit card companies, mutual funds, marketing companies, insurance companies, stock brokers, exchange and depositaries and I don’t know who else. Not receiving any messages meant that I could not transact online, I didn’t have any update on my portfolios, I couldn’t make most bill payments or do anything that involved an OTP, a One Time Password.
What could I do?!? I searched the Internet for someone who I could trust in the company. Who could be better for this job but the CEO of the company!!
I wrote an email to the CEO, mentioning my problem, attaching the mail trail, requesting him to take the onus of the task of getting my number activated. Somewhere in my heart I knew that this was a waste, the CEO of one of the largest corporations in the company had more things to do than oversee individual customer problems. I was wrong!
I wrote this at about midnight on the 7th Feb. On the morning of 8th Feb, I received a call from the CEO’s office, acknowledging the mail and assuring me that they were working on it. After that, I received almost 5 calls from the Gujarat office of the company, asking me various details of the account of these 20 days, telling me that they were really working on it.
By 5 in the evening of 8th Feb, I received a call from the local Reliance Web World telling me that they had a SIM for me. This had the number ported and activated to it, and they wanted to deliver it to me!
At 6PM, I was receiving calls and messages on my Reliance GSM number, and browsing the Internet at 3G speeds.
It was shocking for me to believe that the CEO of a company would bother to read the mail from a customer, one in a hundred million, and act on it.
I love the company!
On 20th January’11, Indian mobile phone subscriber got a new service, MNP or Mobile Number Portability. It is the latest service offered to the Indian Telecom Subscribers, which allows them to retain their mobile number and move the service to a new provider.
This means that the mobile phone subscriber can now say goodbye to bad customer service, call drops, unwanted services, spam sms, marketing calls etc from their existing provider and move to a new and better (!) service provider.
“Now you can leave the pirates and join the thieves!” is what a user pointed out on twitter!
I think it is true to a great extent. All the service providers are marketing their 3G services. It is almost impossible to find out if your city is covered in their list (important if you live in a small city), except one provider that has a list, surprisingly Reliance! They are all promising high-speed internet and giving you an option to check if your handset supports 3G, but none of them tells you that your city may not yet be covered with 3G service. So much for their Advertising Standards!
Well, for all those who are still planning to move to a new provider, or planning to change between CDMA and GSM, here is the information. And yes, you can port a CDMA number to a GSM provider, which means that a number from Reliance/Tata/Virgin/MTS can be used on Airtel/Vodafone/Idea/Tata/Aircel etc. and vice-versa.
SMS –
PORT <10 Digit Mobile Number>
to 1900.
You will receive a UPC, Unique Porting Code, which you will use as an identifier with your new provider. Walk into the store of the new provider of your choice, ask for a Customer Application Form, fill in the form and provide the UPC. You will need a Photograph, Address and Identity Proof.
Once you have done this, you will receive a new SIM card and you will have to clear the complete billed/un-billed outstanding with your old provider. Your new provider will let you know once the port is ready. You will get an SMS on the old SIM, to inform you to replace your old SIM with the new SIM in the phone. This process should take no more than 7 working days.
Remember, you will need a new phone if you are changing your service from GSM to CDMA or vice versa.
Happy Porting and Calling on the New Provider!
