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| BSNL users stand in a queue to pay their bills. A file picture |
Darjeeling, May 2: Subscribers of the BSNL?s broadband service ? the telecom department?s latest offering here ? are up in arms against the ?inflated? bills sent to them.
The BSNL has launched the service in January this year, and if the customers are to be believed, local officials had assured them free service for the first two months. However, subscribers were shocked when the BSNL sent them bills ranging between Rs 5,000 and Rs 17,000 over two months, mainly as charges for surfing the Internet.
?After sending us the bills, they are now maintaining that only the rentals for the Home-250 plan were supposed to have been free,? said Niraj Lama, a BSNL subscriber under the Home-500 plan.
So far around 25 customers have registered their complaints. They have even threatened to drag the BSNL to court if their grievances are not redressed immediately.
S.N. Banerjee, the general manger of BSNL, said from Siliguri: ?If they submit a petition, we will definitely try and see what can be done.?
The BSNL had introduced various domestic schemes like Home-250, Home-500, Home-1000, Home-1800 and Home-3300. Though subscribers claim ?everything? was supposed to be free for the first two months, the BSNL has charged them for downloads beyond a certain ceiling.
For example, subscribers of the Home-250 plan have to pay a monthly rental of Rs 250 and are given free downloads up to 0.4 gigabyte (around 400 megabyte). For every additional downloads, they have been asked to pay Rs 1.40 per megabyte.
It may be noted that a single page of download usually amounts to 1 megabyte.
With the BSNL reportedly maintaining that everything was free for two months, the customers seem to have liberally used the Internet without taking note of the limit, which accounts for the huge bills they have received.
The subscribers have other complaints too. ?The BSNL had also promised a bandwidth (speed) of 256 kilobyte per second, but what we get is below that,? said Bimal Sharma, an Internet cafe owner.
