I brought a new Toshiba laptop 10 days back which has PCMCIA slot... having been a Airtel customer for its mobile service for the last eight years, decided to opt for a Airtel Data Card to browse the web on my laptop. Got in touch with Vioice & Data Solutions, Bharati Airtel Ltd (complete address # 513, 16 Cross, Off CMF Road, Indiranagar II stage, Bangalore - 38). They told me the various tariff plans and said the card would cost Rs 4999/. I agreed and requested whether somebody could be sent to do the installation. They agreed, but it took two whole days and innumerable calls before a sales guy called Anand (98807 43634) turned up. He took the money, installed the card and promised to activate it the same day. He tried to install what Airtel calls Global Mobility Manager... After repeated attempts he failed to install the software.

He promised to come back but never turned up for another two days (I kept calling as he had taken my money and left me with an inactive data card). Finally he brought his 'senior' engineer, guy called hamid, who also could not install the software. Promised to come back with an even senior guy.

They again took another 3 days before a chap called Santosh Kumar (9880742659) turned up... He fiddled around for an hour and then finally announced "U have Windows Vista on your laptop that is why it wont work... Pls get Windows XP installed... " I couldn't fathom his gall... If this is really true shame on Airtel, if they can't get their data card to work with Vista.

I demanded my money back and they said you have to contact 121 for that and sort the issue out. Here everybody is passing the buck and I am asked to contact 7070 who in turn direct me back to 121. Even as I write I am struck with a useless inactive datacard and my money is gone along with my piece of mind...