IN which country does an internet broadband connection need to be 'switched off', because otherwise the provider keeps sending out signals to check and connect with the computer to ensure the connection speed?

Without the permission  of the customer? Therefore running up the internet bill way beyond the customer's plan? Only in India, that's where!

After 17 years away from the land of my birth, I decided it was time to come home. Why? Because I basically thought I had been away far too long plus India was "shining" and full of the promise and potential that had taken far too long to come our way…

I knew there would be many lacunae in the India Shining picture but that was OK I reasoned with myself. At least in the sphere of IT things should be coming up roses - after all we were the IT back office to the world! In fact in computer land, things should A-OK. Right! Yeah right!

The first blow that brought all my expectations of a "smooth, fast, efficient" Internet connection tumbling down was my experience with Hathaway!

Not only did I get anything but fast Internet connection (Hathaway's idea of broadband!) I also  got  tsumami like wave of virus attacks that laid my computer low for a full month! In fact my computer had to be reformatted leading me to lose valuable data… But that's another story. I then threw myself at Airtel's mercy!

No more virus attacks. Reliable. Secure. BUT - a 256 bps connection for a thousand bucks? The net crawled, forget surfing!

Video streaming was a no-no, downloads took days! I upped my plan to 512 bps at Rs 1499 per month - with the net result that if there was more than one computer connected, one of us had to down shutters! A plan migration was called for.