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Ah well, it was a nice holiday while it lasted, but now it is over.
On the morning of the 7th of April, BSNL DataOne went down, and every single subscriber that I know of in Bangalore and Chennai (probably elsewhere as well) was either disconnected or experiencing speeds slower than a 14.4kbps dialup modem.
Calling BSNL on the 7th all day resulted in "saar, server down saar, will be fixed by 2/3/4/5/6/7/8/...pm". Of course nothing got fixed, and by Friday morning, I was upset enough to go and do some investigation.
[Updated 9-Apr-2005 11:50am] More info
[Updated 9-Apr-2005 12:46pm] BSNL gives an "explanation"
[Updated 9-Apr-2005 18:00pm] Services Restored
"Server down" my foot. They were being choked at the VSNL end.
BSNL routes its international traffic via VSNL, and a few simple traceroutes showed that VSNL was choking BSNL traffic at their main international router, and also sending them through HongKong on both the outgoing and incoming route, with major satellite hops (easily identifiable by 500-600 ms gains). The return route from the USA is via New York, London and Hongkong.
Could this be a link or equipment problem? No chance at all - I have a colocated server at VSNL, and a simple traceroute from there showed a straightforward and quick route to anywhere in the world - exiting via the same gateway.
So - what's going on? Is VSNL putting the squeeze on BSNL? Quite possible, from a technical perspective, there is simply no question about it.
But why is BSNL not admitting this? Why do they stick to the same lie "server down" (the story changed to "upgradation" towards the end of Thursday)? Why do they not admit the real story?
Things got more hilarious on Friday. After more than a day outage, with thousands of customers screaming their heads off (try getting through to 1957 - the Internet helpdesk number, or +91-80 2555-5555, the broadband division, and you will soon figure out that they are swamped), with online forums overflowing with people complaining (see Vinu Thomas's forums as an example), BSNL's tollfree call centre (1600-424-1600) claims that they have not received any complaints and that this is the first time that they are hearing this!
To add insult to injury, this call centre is a very noisy one, and you can hear other operators talking to callers. So while the guy I spoke to went off to get a complaint ticket number (!!!!), he didnt put me on hold music, and I got to listen to various operators nearby merrily telling callers that there was no problem, and that this was the first time that they were hearing a complaint!!!!!!!!!!
There are lots of ways of complaining - some numbers I have already listed above. Apart from this, there is the online complaints form of Bangalore Telecom, and of course one could complain to the DGM in charge of Broadband connections - dgm_mktg@sancharnet.in.
As things stand, here is what I am seeing at 1 am on 9-Apr-2005 - 21 kbps download, 57 kbps upload. Pathetic, eh?
To compare it to what I was getting just two days earlier, check out this list - and look at the the first "achitnis" report you see - 345 kbps download, 99 kbps upload. That's the kind of speed I am (was?) paying for!
OK BSNL - this is simply not 1995 anymore. Your customers are way smarter than you think, and magic tools like "traceroute" will instantly show where the problems are. There is no "server down" - there is "service down", and it is time that you admit what the problem is, instead of burying your heads in the sand, hoping it will all blow over.
Here's what I think (and this is pure conjecture and conspiracy theory - so bear with me, it's freaking 2 am):
I think that BSNL is locked in a commercial battle with the VSNL, who are their sole gateway providers. In some kind of retaliation, VSNL is routing BSNL traffic over slow routes, satellites, etc. And BSNL is now desperately negotiating with VSNL and possibly other vendors, trying to solve this problem. Having recently sued the pants off Reliance, it is unlikely that BSNL will get direct access to Reliance-controlled FLAG fibre links, and obviously Sify (who is sitting on tons of bandwidth that it hoarded in order to keep prices high) isn't going to help either (they can't be too happy with BSNL lowering the prices for broadband).
In all this, BSNL's customers are the losers, and this is possibly an object lesson for people - a broadband vendor without international gateways of his own is likely to be a shaky proposition!
It is also going to be a hard lesson for businesses who thought that broadband=leased lines. Consumer Broadband services come with no guarantees or service level agreements (SLAs), and if you were planning to run your business on a consumer broadband link, you need to seriously rethink your plan.
I hope that BSNL gets its act together by the weekend, or at least gets honest and keeps its customers informed. Because if they do not, they will see HUGE amount of churn when other broadband vendors start matching BSNL's prices and bandwidth, based on low satisfaction levels.
[Updated 9-Apr-2005 11:50am] More info
Ah well, as of this morning, nothing has changed - I am getting speeds of 9/15, others are seeing 25/18, but no one is seeing 256/128 or 384/128.
Appaji (author of the very useful Huawei MT800 Router config guide writes in his journal that the issue is damage to the submersible cable on which the traffic destined for outside India is sent. Apparently, he was luckier than me - he got someone at BSNL to be honest.
Or was he?
I have been searching the net for the past two days for any references to cable damage - something that is normally very easy to find. No such luck. Theonly story I could find about any SEAMEWE cable being damaged goes back to the 26th of March, and that was for 4-5 hours!
And even if there is some magical explanation for all this - why isn't BSNL saying anything? Do they feel that customer frustration is more acceptable than "losing face" by admitting that one of their links was damaged? Even this morning, I was given the completely unbelievable "server down" excuse!
[Updated 9-Apr-2005 12:46pm] BSNL gives an "explanation"
Opened the The Times of India and found, on page 2, a small note from BSNL:
PUBLIC INCONVENIENCE
Poor BSNL net service: Internet and broadband consumers of BSNL are experiencing low speed problems due to cut in the deep sea optical fibre. The services are likely to be restored at the earliest.
Sadly, no one seems to have told BSNL services at 1957 and 1600-424-1600 this: as of this morning, we were again told "server down" and "there is no problem" by the two call centres.
And strangely, VSNL's services, which apparently go via the same SEAMEWE-III undersea cable, are unaffected. It's a miracle! :)
[Updated 9-Apr-2005 18:00pm] Services Restored
OK, a few minutes ago, I got a call from BSNL asking me to test my services. Here's what I got - 391/88. Three days of connectivity nightmare comes to an end (I hope).
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