

Airtel, one of the biggest Indian ISPs, is intercepting HTTP requests to display ads - GeneralMaximus
http://blog.uncool.in/2009/02/26/airfail/

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anuraggoel
This is not surprising. The concept of customer service in India is very
different from what we accept as the norm in the States. Indian businesses
have always treated consumers like crap. The socio-economic reasons for this
are beyond the scope of this post, but I do want to point out some examples to
illustrate the general attitude, and help align the frame of reference better.

My mother lives in New Delhi and often visits me in the States. She still
can’t get over how easy it is to return stuff to stores here. In India, once
you’ve purchased something, it’s yours for life. You can’t get a refund if you
are not 'completely satisfied with your purchase’. Keep or trash; there is no
‘like’. This applies even if the product is defective. If you are lucky, or
willing to yell at the store manager, you might get store credit.

You don’t like the movie selection on Delta? I once flew a ‘discount carrier’
from Bangalore to Delhi and had to stare at a 6" display ad for a refrigerator
three hours straight, because it was pasted on the back of the headrest in
front of me, and the seat next to me, and every other seat on the plane.

If your server in a San Francisco restaurant isn’t friendly, you give the
restaurant two stars on Yelp. In India, if my server is friendly, I have
reason to be suspicious. Surprisingly, I have seen this attitude towards
customer service even in Indian stores and restaurants in the Bay Area. Note:
if you’re white, your Indian server in an Indian restaurant is more likely to
be friendly and hospitable. Not so much if you’re Indian, perhaps because they
know you know, or perhaps because awe of the ‘white-skinned colonizing
foreigner’ is still deeply entrenched in our culture.

Airtel, and pretty much all wireless carriers in India often send you ‘free’
text messages advertising their newest ring tones, pricing schemes and partner
offers. "AT&T does that too!" you say, but not twenty-five times a day. I
don’t know if people even understand the concept of opting out.

Let’s talk about less superficial issues - landlines stop working arbitrarily.
There are times when I can’t reach my mother because her phone (and hence DSL)
service has been knocked out by rain or wind or the latest ‘big dig’. Even
when the phone lines work, DSL doesn’t work well and VoIP is spotty. Hour-long
power outages are common. Four hour outages are even more common (and I'm
talking big cities here). Running water around the clock? Only for the tiny
new economic class that gets written about in the New York Times. I think it
was the mid-nineties, when I heard about a week-long power outage in a Delhi
neighborhood and the consequent lynching of local power grid officials by an
irate mob.

Having grown up in the Indian middle-class, I am used to bad customer service,
though I must admit the States is softening me. So when I see complaints about
Airtel intercepting client HTTP requests, I can empathize, but it makes me
wonder about much bigger customer service issues that never make it to the
front page of HN.

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GeneralMaximus
I was the one who submitted the original story (<shameless>that's my own
blog</shameless>), so I have reasons to be very angry right now, but I don't
quite agree with what you said there.

I have lived in New Delhi all my life, and I've seen this city grow. I
remember the regular power outages, but that was some 5 or 6 years ago. The
power still goes out, but it's a very rare incident. In fact, people of my age
are rather surprised when that happens. My parents are, of course, unfazed
because they've lived in times when it was considered disturbing when the
power _didn't_ go out after every few hours.

I've been with Airtel for about two years now, and so far I've experienced
just two problems with my connection, both of which were fixed within hours. I
remember the roads being flooded with water and school being cancelled when I
was a kid, but that doesn't happen anymore (no matter how hard I wish ;)).
MTNLs landlines are the only constant many Indians know in life. Come whatever
may, your trusty old MTNL will _always_ work. (MTNL's customer service, OTOH,
treats you like shit.)

I wonder how my experiences will compare with those of other Indians. I live
in a great neighbourhood in one of the better areas of New Delhi.

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liuliu
ISPs in China have done this for years (3 years, as I can recall). Now, they
found a more efficient way: intercepting http requests and injecting Google
Adsense click in any web pages.

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hardik
"google adsense click" as in they force send users to the advertisement link?
That's huge!

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josefresco
I don't think that's what he meant. Google would lock that shit down quick if
it was true.

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statictype
Funny, I have an Airtel broadband connection but have not seen that. However I
suspect the reduction of bandwidth on unlimited schemes is correct.

~~~
g__g
Even I have not seen this yet but I have heard about the reduction of
bandwidth even on the so called "unlimited" offers. I thought Airtel was the
only decent ISP left in India, but they also seem to be messing things up.

And btw these ads are not gonna help them sell their insanely expensive DTH
services. Also the lack of understanding of the technology among their
customer care executives is shocking!

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strider24
How much do you guys pay for your internet connection per month? What is the
speed that you get and where do you live?

Me? Rs.750 (around $15), 256kbps (Airtel), India (Bangalore).

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axiom
Rogers, the largest Canadian ISP, will redirect you to a page filled with
their ads if you try to access a domain name that doesn't exist.

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hardik
Sify has been doing something similar from years. There, for every GB or so of
bandwidth one day of the package is reduced.

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chiffonade
American ISPs have been doing this with failed DNS lookups for years.

