Borderlinx India - Worst ever service..

I've ordered an item from Amazon and thought Borderlinx was a good choice. I've used it in Singapore many times and never had any problem.
But I was wrong...

1. First the delivery was delayed by 4 days (I paid extra for Express Global Delivery)
2. Second, they overcharged me USD 80 (For the product worth $40 they charged me 120 in taxes and claim that's what Indian Customs charged). When I checked with Customs the answer is for food items there is no Custom charges if its below $100.
3. Borderlinx can't provide any receipts of proof of payment to Customs/Duties
4. No reply to emails/complaints
5. More than month & no follow-up.

Finally I decided to look in to the options to bring them to Court or Small Claims tribunal. I can't really share the details as it's under Court now but will certainly share the details once it;s over.

Mobile Turbo Boost - Is it a real "Use Case" ?

I've seen many of the mobile vendors talking about "Turbo Boost" as a use case to entice operators to purchase their products.

So the idea is a subscriber gets choppy video and when he purchases  turbo boost by paying extra money the bandwidth is updated on the fly and Customer will experience good quality video.

The way I see it is this is one of the absurd idea of a monetization stream. Just imagine you are paying $X for your cable operator but you are getting choppy video. Imagine your Operator asking "extra money" whenever you want to get a "good quality video". Would you still continue with the service ?

This is exactly the same situation. If Operator is 'improving' the video quality then I can understand the 'premium'. But for offering 'basic' video why would subscriber pay ?

I saw Cisco, Ericsson, NSN preaching the usecases to justify their Policy/GW solution. Weird enough they even have 'survey results' to show that Operators want "turbo boost" as one of the differentiatior.

Well, if I see the service in any operator portfolio, I wouldn't even subscribe to their services. I simply need a 'basic' service which works

*http://www.slideshare.net/CiscoSP360/heavy-reading-mobile-operator-perspectives-monetization-optimization-and-video?from=ss_embed

SingTel Optus to cut hundreds of jobs

Source: Skynews

Though this is no surprise I pity Optus. Its a double whammy for Optus, given the current business situation &on top of it the regulatory situation in Australia is not good either. But the timing of this may send a wrong message to general public. i.e. Major re-organization to merge Consumer businesses in Singapore + Optus, then sack hundreds of Optus staff. Is it the jobs're taken our from Australia and moved to Singapore?

Well, that's not the case atleast for the time being. It may happen in the future which is uncertain right now. But one day SingTel or for that matter majority of telco's in Asia will go towards managed services path. With such a heavy reliance on $ &C & limited focus on innovation, we are not going to see an Engineering led TELCO. This will simply result in 'less costs' & 'more profits' culture which MS promises on the paper.

Update:


Too fast to post my entry. Saw the news on SingTel 'outsourcing' their network to Huawei in ChannelNewsAsia

Too bad to hear that SingTel outsourcing to Huawei. I believe its a tough decision for SingTel given their legacy/culture.

Remove Kontera

Managed to remove Kontera. I couldn't recall when and why did I configured this .. Sorry for the 'messy' stuff and hope it's more 'readable' now.

Samsung Dual-SIM UMTS Smart Phone

Just purchased this Dual SIM phone after I lost my previous Karboon phone. Bought it online from Flipkart here

@SGD240 this phone is a mid range device & the best part is it's all the features for a 'smart phone'. i.e.

* 3G/HSDPA/HSUPA
* Wi-Fi/Bluetooth
* Android 2.3
* Touch screen &Other regular stuff..
Ofcourse don't expect a wonderful performance like the high end items.

There is another local brand (Micromax) but I'm not quite sure about the 'support'. So I choose the 'samsung' and paid around SGD50 though this is a tad lower spec compared to Micromax.

Here is the comparison sheet from Flipkart.

Well, I can't do a good review but here is a good review from Martin

http://mobilesociety.typepad.com/mobile_life/2012/05/the-samsung-galaxy-y-duos-6102-dual-sim-and-android-part-2-internet-connectivity.html

http://mobilesociety.typepad.com/mobile_life/2012/05/dual-sim-android.html

Hyderabad - International City ??

Though its our capital I don't really feel that Hyderabad reached the status of International city yet. My beloved city still lags behind the rest of the metro's or even Bangalore. Be it the 'courteous people' or 'culture' or 'work culture' or 'air travel connectivity'.
Now I've another surprise from DHL :) See it below. The mail to Hyderabad goes via Chennai..

Sunday, March 11, 2012		Location	Time
19	Forwarded for delivery	HYDERABAD - INDIA	16:32
18	Arrived at Sort Facility HYDERABAD - INDIA	HYDERABAD - INDIA	12:35
17	Departed Facility in CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	05:34
16	Arrived at Sort Facility CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	02:08
15	Processed at CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	00:52
Saturday, March 10, 2012		Location	Time
14	Shipment on hold	CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	11:52
13	Clearance processing complete at CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	04:36
12	Arrived at Sort Facility CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	CHENNAI (MADRAS) - INDIA	04:06
Friday, March 09, 2012		Location	Time
11	Departed Facility in LONDON-HEATHROW - UK	LONDON-HEATHROW - UK	07:11

Purchased a Samsung Mono Laser Printer - 1865W

Just purchased this mono laser for occasional home usage. Initially I was looking for a MFC but realized I don't really need a MFC and opted for a cheaper alternative.

I went to IT Show 2012 at Suntec City and as usual the place was crowded madly. I wonder how these shows attract such a massive crowds even with no price difference compared to sim lim square :)

Anyway the box is pretty solid and so far managed to try the features and the 'app' in iPhone where you can directly print the stuff to printer. At $110 this is a pretty good deal for me though the toner is rather expensive. But for occasional use and considering the long shelf life of a toner I don't see purchasing a replacement toner within the next year. So may be when the show comes the next time I might simply purchase a new printer :)

Apple iOS release 5.1 (not 5.0.1 but real 5.1)

Just updated my iPhone to iOS 5.1. Main reason for the upgrade is to 'try' whether this solves my battery drain.
Ofcourse it will take couple of days before I can really fell the improvement (if any) but there are few useful updates caught my eye.

First one is the increase in 'app' download limit from current 20MB to 50MB. This is a big thing to me because whenever I update the app's the 'frustrating' popup comes and asks me to connect to Wi-Fi. Now I can forget this part most of the times.

Second is the "removal of photo from iCloud photo stream". In the past we can't remove a single photo. With 5.1 this is added. Lame but I am used to apple so never bothered about this. By the way I started to use Google+ for photo update so it is easy to share with friends :). So this is not a really big deal to me but I can clean up old 'pics'
[EDIT]: This is not really 'removing from iCloud but only from your iPhone". So if you happened to sync your iPhone & iPad to the same iCloud account there is no way you can remove it from iCloud :|


Third is the "camera shortcut" which is always present next to "slide to open" in lock screen.

[Update]


Surprisingly my batter life improved and now it can last one full day :)

Secondly the "push mail" seems to be improved. In the past I see delayed 'push' but now I can see the popup on my iPhone before it appears in my exchange.

So it looks like there are some good improvements in 5.1 (Singapore version)

SingTel 2G/3G BBOM or Data Network down..II

Well its just 48 hours and need to write a new post :|

The BBOM is not working again since morning in City area. Change to Internet works like a charm though a bit slow..

These days it is getting very common and I don't want to blame them solely. Competition is driving prices down and operators are squeezing vendors in return. The entire value chain is in a 'price war' and there is no such thing as "cheaper, better, faster" :). So if we want quality then we should be ready to pay for it and given the current market situation I don't think this is going to happen any time soon.. Sad to say but this is the reality today in Singapore (Be it Telco or ISP or any other)

Insurance Comparison in Singapore (Medical / Health, General, Accident)

I tried searching the 'blogs' but couldnt find a good and detailed comparison including the estimated premiums.

Finally I wanted to give a try to the 'website' which many other nationals would laugh if  I share with them :) But I went to Singapore gov website and here is the comparison showing estimated premiums and various options in a neat PDF file :)

+1 to Singapore..

MOH Website

SingTel 2G/3G BBOM or Data Network down..

I was in the office yesterday and seems SingTel Mobile BBOM was down again.. @ Tanjong Pagar to Suntec (CBD area) I couldn't connect.

This morning there was a slight problem but so far seems the problem resolved quite fast.

However right now (@1500 Hrs) I could connect to 3G + Data network but I can't browse any sites. I tried resetting the network settings & turn on/off the phone but still the same problem.

There was a old trick I remembered since Magix days. change the proxy.. So I did changed the APN settings and it started working :).. So e-ideas to internet on my iPhone resolved the problem. Though it did disabled my Personal Host Spot (reason here) it worked well.

Past links:

1.  Outage in Jan 2012

2. Outage in Sep 2011