TT’s Jottings-Blog of VU2SWX

Last week I had to visit IIT KGP and Calcutta. I managed to get a ticket at the last minute and quickly settled on Shalimar express. Most of my companions were Bengali revellers returning after touring god’s own country.
Before reaching Varkala a vendor with water bottles came. I bought a one litter bottle. Then I noticed that most of my Malayalee co-passengers were buying water bottles where as the Bengalis were travelling with cans filled with water. The train reached Chennai next morning and most of the Mallu crowd was gone. Lot of people from Andhra and Orrisa came in. Almost all had water bottles filled at home.
Many of them were refilling the bottles at stations. The remaining Mallus on the train were buying bottles. When the train reached Vijayawada there was a small queue in front of a counter which displayed ” Bring in your bottle and fill at Rs 1 “. People were seen confidently using public taps in North India. However, in Kerala you can see passengers buying packaged mineral water and throwing away bottles. Is the quality of our water so low? Or is it just another Mallu prevention ?
Anyway on the way back home, I filled two bottles form IIT guest house and carried with me. It lasted till Vijayawada. I refilled them at ” Bring in your bottle and fill at Rs 1 ” and used it till Chennai Egmore. I had plenty of time at Egmore waiting for my connection train to Trivandrum. I looked around for a tap and found out one. But I turned skeptical at the last moment and bought a bottle.
I have a few questions now. Why the railway is not providing quality drinking water through public taps on the platform? If you look out of a compartment you can see thousands of empty water bottles on both sides of the track. Why we are not bothered about the environmental problems it creates ? How good is the packaged water that we get on the railway?
Look at any public function or TV discussion , you can see mineral water bottles on the dais, even though no one drinks. It is a fashion for even small meetings in our college to place few bottles of packaged water in front of the guests. When did this trend begin ?
Packaged drinking water is available in almost all shops in Kerala. It seems the next generation will be afraid of drinking well water.

vu2swx Living in India

I took a session on recycling old PCs with LTSP at   barcamp kerala 7 last Sunday.  Even though I am associated  with the organizers of barcamp ever since its inception in Kerala, I could not attend any of the previous ones due to various reasons. So I was a bit skeptical about the kind of people I may meet. Also, this was the first public lecture I gave after assuming charges of Principal College of Engineering Attingal. I  conveniently hid this fact from the audience suspecting that my job profile might overshadow the geek in me.

I was picked up from home by Kenney Jacob at 5.30 am  and we stated our journey to Changannasery on a TATA VISTA . The car was fantastic with GPS can other gizmos . A few of Kenney’s colleagues were also present in the car. We reached the  venue around 8.45 to find that the  gates of the Krishtu Jayanti college were closed. Kenny made some frantic telephone calls and finally we were asked to enter the college via  the  gates of a Catholic church.

There were around  70 guys in the hall. There was some initial hiccups and the  sessions took some time to start . I missed introductory remark by Kevin as I went to the nearest tea shop for a quick dose of coffee. The next session from Prassed Pai on 3d graphics programming was good and reminded me of my PG classes at CUSAT where we did all the shading and drawing algorithms. I think most of the audience was clue less about the topic.
The next session    Building Complex Website the Drupal Way from  Fredrik Jonsson? was   enlightening.
The third  session on Media by Kenney Jacob initiated some interesting discussions among the audience. Some of the participants expressed the fears about corporate media  manipulating facts .
Next was a cake cutting session . Some one suggested Fredrik Jonsson’s name for the event and every one clapped  when he cut the big cake sponsored by   ayruz web holdings  . Later I had lunch at a local teashop .
I took the first session in the after noon. My Idea was to set up my laptop as ltsp server and net book as the client . Then project the client to  the  big screen and start the presentation on the client.
The Sharp projector  at the venue was behaving erratically. It showed only half of the screen. I had to change instantly to the white board and start writing.  I briefly explained the  LTSP  with a figure that I drew and later on moved the projector to my laptop. The presentation was shown after explaining things with a white board.  I think half of the audience got confused by then.
The next session from UST global was  quite boring. I think such PR crap should be avoided in barcamps. I missed the session by Binny VA as I went out for a tea again.

The last session on linux devices was good,  but Praseed Pai  seemed to be the only person understanding it.
Finally, Fr. Abraham Mulamootil made a surprise appearance. I think it is the first time a catholic priest is seen publicly in a bar(camp). Any way he seems to be the only geek in the church.
The entire event was wound up around 6pm.
The facilities at the venue were pathetic.  No one from the college turned up. There was no net connectivity.  The wifi link of the college was running but their firewall was preventing outgoing net  request. Hope the next barcamp at Thiruvalla will be better and more interesting.

vu2swx Computers, Gnu/Linux

As I travel frequently  in connection with my official and no-official engagement, my internet presence is disrupted. I have tons on mails and rss feed entries to be read after each journey. I was thinking of buying a netbook.
I recently bought a Toshiba NB200 netbook at a discount rate from my cousin. It came with 160 GB hard disk 1GB RAM, intel atom processor and Windows XP was pre-installed.
The first thing I did with the netbook was to remove windows. I installed ubuntu netbook remix 9.10, All the hardware except sound was instanly recognised by ubuntu. My next task was to  make it internet ready. I looked for various solutions like evdo from BSNL , netconnect from reliance etc. They all looked costly.
Finally I decided to go in for GPRS connection from BSNL. I  am already an unlucky owner of Nokia N72 , which is recognised only from windows. Fortunately the GPRS modem on N72 is accessible from linux . Here is what I did with my BSNL prepaid  phone connection to get it ready for my net book.

1) Enable GPRS on the phone

The GPRS can be enabled on BSNL connections by sending an SMS to  53733 with the following  word.  GPRSPRE. (I use a prepaid connection). They charge heavily    for GPRS usage 10 paise per KB.  However, they have some schemes which provide unlimited Internet access.
If you are a sporadic traveller, unlimited gprs access  for one day can be availed at Rs.20. For ardent travellers, an unlimited connection for one month can be subscribed at Rs 230. For availing the special schemes, you have to send sms to 53733 with the word GPRS20 (or GPRS230). You need a minimum balance of Rs 75 in your prepaid account for availing GPRS20. Once you send the sms,BSNL will ask you to confirm the scheme by sending another sms with GPRS20Y to 53733. (Sometimes it takes an hour or so  to get back the sms asking for confirmation. Being an Indian, you have to be patient.)

2) Configuring the Modem.

This was rather easy as my N72 GPRS modem was recognised as soon as I plugged the data cable.
I verified its presence  by looking at dmesg output on a terminal.

I installed wvdial from the ubuntu repository .

$ sudo apt-get install wvdial

Next, I ran the following command.

$ sudo wvdialconf

It created a minimal configuration file for wvdial  /etc/wvdial.conf.

/etc/wvdial.conf was then edited as shown below.

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”GPRSSOUTH.CELLONE.IN”,”",0,0
Modem Type = USB Modem
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 115200
Dial Command = ATD
Phone = *99***1#
Username =9194461xxxxx
Password =9194461xxxxx
New PPPD = yes
Stupid Mode =yes

Use your phone number as username and password. I entered the phone number including the country code as shown above. Also look at the Init3 entry. If you are in south India, you can use the above line. For other regions look at this page.

Now you can access internet by dialling out using wvdial.

$ sudo wvdial

The internet speed is reasonable.

I am posting this from Venad Express on my way back from Model Engineering college where I delivered a lecture  on free software. The netbook was really handy for the presentation too.

vu2swx Computers, Uncategorized

The guys from BSNL seem to be reading this blog after I posted my letter here.  I examined my traffic logs today and found two  referrals  from  kttp://kerala.bsnl.co.in .  Anyway,  several  officials are visiting  our street regularly after my blog post. Yesterday, they replaced the junction box. See the pictures  below.

It seems they had  an under ground cable pair running. They dug up the road and connected the three lines that come out of the junction box to the  under ground cable. See the following pictures of the professional job they have done. . Also look at the box closely. They have   put the key on the box itself.   Probably it is the safest place to keep it. 

I am planning to stop complaining about  the joints. Other wise , BSNL may allocate (in the next budget)  several crores of public money to teach their line staff about how to crimp a cable pair to a junction box.   Now ,  the section from the junction box to the phone remains to be fixed.  I am firing off a letter thanking the CMD for  changing the junction box.

BSNL seems to  be trying to close the case . See the status update on their site.

Meanwhile , I  have brought the issue to the notice of our residents association.  The residents association  president told me that several  residents are facing similar problems.  He showed me several other open junction boxes and over hanging wires in our street .  He has also  promised   me to write a formal letter to the chairman and managing director about the problem.( I am sure no other official will respond ).   Let me see if I can get some more pictures  from the street .

Blogging can work wonders   in India too .   Please stay tuned for more update.

I have just sent this Email to all the concerned officers.

Sir
This has reference to my complaint  in Kerala Circle Circle PG cell vide KRL/CO/2009/14224  and my blog post. Thank you very much for taking the initiative to change the DP.
I have posted  my additional comments on the problem  here.
http://brainstorms.in/?p=577
The case is being closed with out  replacing the faulty cable joints. My dial up internet is getting disconnected every time  some electrical disturbance occurs.   .  Please refer to this picture of the connection inside the house.
http://brainstorms.in/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/bsnl7-300×225.jpg
This is remaining the same.
I am too fed up with dealing with your engineers and field staff who have no clue to what a customer needs.  I  am actively  considering the  idea of shifting over to some other player.
Thanking you for all the help.
Regards

Sunil

Update   :25th September Friday 2009

I  received this reply from BSNL today.

–Sir,Even though the service is restored ,the docket is kept still pending at our end and we are waiting for a detailed report after redressal of the grievance .As per the field report a new DP is erected  and the action is being taken for   proper fixing of the rosette and the  wiring at suboffice .Thank u for your feed back .AGM(PG)

Update 5th October 2009 8.30PM

I am back home after a long journey.  Someone from BSNL claiming to be Sub divisonal engineer called me up just now.  She asked me what time I am available at home. I told her  “8pm to 8 am ” .  She  told me that BSNL is not working at such odd times and advised me to  be available at home  during their working time  so that they can fix the joints.

How ridiculous the BSNL employees are ?  They are still in 20th century and they expect a customer to wait for them.   I can get a  new phone from reliance or TATA round the clock and they will attend you at your convenience.  I am sure Goverment of Inda will disinvest this monster  shortly.

My complaint is pending with them  for  the past 25 days and they are still looking for excuses.

vu2swx Living in India BSNL

I have a land line connection at home.  It is from  BSNL, the state owned Telecom giant in India.  I am too disgusted with their service and shot of the following email today to all publicly visible BSNL officers.   Let us see whether email work in India.

The exact nature of the problem cannot be described in words , so calling customer care is useless.  See the pictures below to have a general idea of problems with my  BSNL land line. I live in a urban area. If the connection is like this in a city,  the situation  in villages will be much more pathetic.

To
Nodal Officer
Public Grievances
Kerala Circle BSNL

Sir,
I am an unfortunate customer of BSNL having the land line no. 0471-xxxxxx . This phone has never worked for 3 days at a stretch. The connection coming to my home is hanging on the poles and is within the reach of even small children. Every time a vehicle passes the cable breaks. There is no RJ 11 outlet inside the house. The connection to the instrument is given is the most unprofessional manner.
I have booked umpteen number of complaints . Each time they come and cut the overhanging cable and fixes it . In effect , if I want to make a call I have to go to the neighbour and file a complaint first.
Dejected and disgusted with the kind of service and the personnel dishing out the service, I am surrendering the phone. I know emails wont work in a government company like BSNL, so I am CCying the mail to all addresses that I can find right from your minister to the local exchange. So please excuse me if you have received this mail in mistake.

Also, I am writing an entry in my blog on the status of Consumer Satisfaction in BSNL. Please read it here.   I have some interesting pictures too.

http://brainstorms.in/?p=534

Thanking you for the services rendered so far.

Yours faithfully

Sunil T T

CC to gm_o_kerala@bsnl.co.in, MOCIT@nic.in, dgmpgkrl@bsnl.co.in, agmpgkrl@bsnl.co.in, cmdbsnl@bsnl.co.in
–

Update :  4pm September 10 2009

There seem to be some  one who is reading email in BSNL.  I got the following e mail  one hour back ( I am removing the persons name and phone no.)

agmpgkrl@bsnl.co.in to me

show details 1:56 PM (1 hour ago)

Sir This is in acknowledgement to ur detailed mail and blog.Ur grievance has been registered in Circle PG cell vide KRL/CO/2009/14224 and a detailed report is avwaited after redressal.If you dont mistake kindly wait for surrendering ur telephone connection as your grievance has been borught to the notice of all concerned .The inconvenience caused is regretted. and  we assure our best services always at our level.Tou can track  the status of your grievance on line on website
-http://bsnl.in/pgstatus.htm or www.keralatelecom.co/grievances by feeding the above docket Number and first two letters of your name ie “su” .

XXXXXXXXXXX  XXXXX
Assistant General Manager (PG)
O/o CGMT, BSNL Kerala Circle, Thiruvananthapuram-33
Tel.: 0471-xxxxxxxxx,   , [12727 (Toll free)]
Fax : 0471-xxxxxxx, Mobile: xxxxxxxxxx
email : agmpgkrl@bsnl.co.in

But wait,  look at the web links they have forwarded.

http://www.keralatelecom.co/grievances

This gave me an address not found error.  May be our assistant  general manager has mistyped it. I also make mistakes. It seems they have know idea about the  .in domain

I looked at the other  URL  and got the following screen.

Let us see how it turns out.

Update : 11 am 11 Sept. 2009

A line man from BSNL appeared today. He was looking violent.  I had warned my wife and children about a possible attack from BSNL personnel.

He pulled down two leaves from my coconut tree . See the picture  below. Tried to fix some joints.

Finally , he located the fault to one of the joints that I posted yesterday. The original  joint was replaced with the joint give below. This is inside the house.  I think , I have to take fire insurance for  the house thanks to BSNL.

Oh!  I forgot to mention , BSNL  it self is providing insurance . See this .   How   thoughtful  they are, expecting  this kinds of hazards for the customers.

He then replaced the original phone with another. Now , the phone is working.  But the overhanging wire and the open junction box remains the same.    My phone works for  now and possibly it will work  till this evening .

I used to use dial up internet some time back. I plugged in my lap to the line and tried to access internet .  As expected the data rate is  some thing like 1bit/sec.   The idiots manning the lines have no idea how I use the  phone. For them , phone is just for making local calls. No wonder people are massively surrendering  land lines.  Hail reliance and Tata, at lease their personnel are user friendly.

I am sending the following email to BSNL so that my complaint is not closed prematurely.

To agmpgkrl@bsnl.co.in

Dear Madam,
They fixed the phone . I have posted some more pictures for your kind reference on my blog. Also, posting them to my twitter account and other activist group  emails. I know your men will close the complaint immediately .   I have got this kind of fix several times already .  I want a permanent solution to the open DP and  the wire joints.

Thanking you for the services rendered so far.

Yours faithfully

Sunil T T

Update: 14th  September 2009

I got another email from CMD bsnl as below.  This seems to be a routine reply.

Dear Sir,

We acknowledge receipt of your mail. The same has been forwarded to KERALA

Telecom circle / Telephones for necessary action with intimation to you.

With Kind  Regards.

AGM (Cordn. – I)

CMD SECTT

Update :19 September 2009

Great going with BSNL.  A lady claiming to be Sub Divisional engineer visited my home just now. She was accompanied by a few other staff looking sullen. I showed her the entire problem and told her that the cable is patched at several places and that I am unable to access dial up.   She advised me to take BSNL broadband . I thanked her and told that enough is enough  with BSNL.  She was on the verge of  argueing with me .   I showed her the open junction box (DP) and told her that any kid can pull it out.   She said that is none of my b

vu2swx Living in India, Micro controllers