Airtel is failing to deliver. Or so it seems.

If this is the pointer, as in the blog entry, it wouldn’t be far off time when Airtel would be counted in the same league as Tatas and Sifys of the world.

I too had applied to Airtel to get a new connection from them. However, despite repeated “representations” to their nodal oficers and CEO’s desk, no affirmative response seems to be coming from them for a new connection. It is convenient for them to say no; I am surprised since they have a very miniscule share as compared to BSNL or the legions of hapless consumers who have signed on for Internet through cable.

However, Airtel is in a different league as far as South/ Eastern circles are concerned. Those who have Airtel are raving about their “professionalism”;this too proved to be short lived after they recieved billing glitches which refused to be rectified.

Companies invest heavily in advertisements and call centres without getting any appreciable returns on their investments. To me, this seems to be a waste of resources since call centres only serve to screen the customers from the higher ups. All the crap about customer being “king” is for glossy adverts in magazines, newspapers or TVs.

The biggest driver of the growth is the naive customer in the hinterland who has money but hasn’t been exposed to the consumerism. The explosive growth of the media has brought in customers face to face with ads that promise the world and seek to deliver an aspirational lifestyle. Somewhere there seems to be a miss between the cup and the lip; it isn’t delivering just the right “desired dose”.

I have seen some of the persons working closely in the Telecom industry. Their entire attention is focussed on the sales target; not on delivering the “satisfaction”. Primarily, India remains a low margin high volume game because of the lopsided policies. I have earlier argued that prevailing prices are way too high because of the purchasing parity being low in India and prices can easily “crash” by a magnitude of 40-50% in the coming few years.

Broadband is clearly not delivering in India. Agreed that last mile access hassles are a definite reality, companies having fixed line businesses would derive their steady revenues from value added services. It wouldn’t be any problem to set up an iTunes like clone and offer videos/ music to the masses. A win win solution for content providers and the content delivery platforms. It would give the end user a much larger choice.

Airtel has introduced “unlimited games” recently in order to “popularise” it’s broadband offerings. This only adds credence to my statements above that Airtel is looking at this potential revenue stream. It is no where in the league of playing World of Warcraft online with thousands others; still a small step is a giant leap for Broadband in India.

A side note. Airtel cannot f***ing ensure that their web site conforms to the web standards. I repeatedly got a screen saying that it needed Internet Explorer to view that page correctly! So much for the outsourcing magic in India. If these screwed up vegetative morons can’t code properly and ensure compliance to the established standards, it is a shame for a company that crows about “world class infrastructure”.

They simply can’t deliver the goods.  

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Tags: Advertisement, Airtel, Airtel Broadband, Broadband, Broadband in India, BSNL, CEO, India, Internet, Internet Explorer, Media, Tata, Tatas, Value Added Services, web standards