Airtel is a fun and competent ISP

As most things have, this started with me being bored enough to start looking at new things to do, which led to the discovery of custom DNS setups. And the fact that Airtel provides a Voip service to all its customers.

Start with the useless

After a couple hours of digging around the web, I was able to find the right credentials to put into the ONT to get it to use the voip service (thanks broadbandforum). And after setting the outbound proxy right I picked up the virtual reciever and dialed it in, only to find that it would not transmit my voice (guess someone could make a one way thing out of this).

After making the mistake of calling Airtel about it, my router magically got faulty and replaced with a different one. (Not to mention the installer fooling the person I left incharge by saying its a Nokia router, when it said no such thing on the box, thanks techsupport)

The real drama

I got back to my old place and decided to setup DNS on there, because thats something you just do when youre right about data collection.

I was plesantly suprised to find that the option to set one was disabled. One quick call to Airtel and a technician was ready to help me! Great!

Except NOT, he just very kindly told me that they were very happy to set it to their own dns, changing airtels, but the could not set the one I want? This then sent me down a giant rabbit hole.

Setup Bridge mode they said, itll be fun they said

Off I went, called up Airtel again, and they happily set up bridge mode for me, which was great, next step was the PPPOE credentials. And wouldnt you know it, they dont exist!

How does their ONT work? with PPPoE credentials. You see where this is going?

The Saga

I manage to setup the second router as dynamic IP, and call them up to complain about the credentials. They raise 4 seperate tickets, each closed (did I mention they close tickets by taking a pin from the user? Guess who was never called about it).

Finally, the NOC has a big brain moment and switches the entire ONT to bridge, meaning no more Dynamic IP, also meaning, no more internet! After yet another call what do they do about it? They send a competent individual to fix it, who just clicks pictures of my routers and attempts to photograph the miniPC for some reason???? And proceeds to not fix the issue and fucks off in 30 minutes??

Then I call his supervisor back (because they apparently dont call anyone but their tech), and tells me they cant give me PPPoE credentials, because Airtel doesnt want them to? But will set my router to bridge and proceed to not do anything about it for 3 days! Not even open a new ticket or pick up calls.

The on call supports were so nice and helpful that they reset my router 5 times, which would then pick up config from their end, the bridge config. Even opened up a ticket for a completely different location in a different state!

The very day they had the brain power to reset it from their end, I realized thathe following:

Airtel/Chortel is not just a bad ISP, but a complete joke of an organization, and that they have no interest in providing good service to their customers, but rather just want to milk them for as much money as possible while providing the bare minimum of service.

Had something like Jio not happened we would all be stuck in organizations selling shit internet at exorbitant prices ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

Oh but the phone service is nice

There is no MMS, 5G for watches, or RCS, but theres Voicemail , which is very hidden and doesnt work most of the time.

You have me at a very desi time in my life

After this happy little accident I cut them off like a sappy ex and switched to the local ISP, who doesnt give a hoot what I do with my configuration.

With that, I was finally free to break and make my home network any way I pleased.