Over the past few years, Chinese manufacturing base has grown by leaps and bounds.While the media tends to highlight the inflow of FDI and the concurrent economic benefits, it has so far failed to report the actual situation on the ground.

Chinese Government has traditionally forced banks to loan upstarts to get in manufacturing. Given the scope for corruption and high saving rates of the Chinese, this has resulted in huge non performing assests in the economy. So much so, it is alleged that Chinese banking system is on the verge of a massive collapse-though ably funded by the government by means of doles. Somehow it is standing on a support structure. While reforms are underway- there is much to be desired there.

The growth of the telecom is expected- I believe that they have much clearer policies about Telecom. However, the growth in telecom and consequently Internet is thwarted by huge amount of censorship- something that India is relatively immune from. Marxists would do anything to promote the cult of Mao and this means his ideas of censorship too. People have a notional concept of democracy and any attempt to circumvent the existing laws is severly dealt with.

In this background, Chinese company Huawei has been able to bag orders from BSNL. Everytime I switch on the crappy plasticky modem, I realise the gravity of the situation. Most often BSNL’s services just conk off. Is it to do with the kind of the telecom equipment we have in place? I know not of the technical aspect, though I strongly believe it is such.

There was an interesting article in Business World which decided to explore the origins of Huawei. One thing was clear. The promoters are close to the ruling elite in China- which means that most of their working capital has been underwritten by the Chinese financial institutions. At the same time, Huawei hasn’t been able to make it’s mark up in the telecom equipment. I believe that they are under the surveillance of the intelligence agencies; I had reported this earlier.

Why am I inimical to Chinese and this post. Two main reasons. First and foremost. The existing idea to award the tender to the one with the lowest cost needs to be reviewed. If and when there is better equipment, why hasn’t this been given order for? Their claims that Huawei’s equipment was upto Dot’s standards doesnt hold water at all. And then, a huge order to the Chinese manufacturers has killed the initiative to innovate in our own country.

Secondly and more pertinently, my anitpathy to the marxists and the way they undermine the nationalism. It is true that they are corpse worshippers ( Lenin hasn’t been buried yet). What’s worse is that their ideologies are fossilised and hold no relevance to present circumstances. No wonder they remain confined to narrow constituencies- there too they have made a mess of the present system.

Telecom companies have evolved multifarious ways and means to loot us. The fact remains that India has become a free ground for entrenched corporate interests; weak regulation, nil consumer feedback, poor implementation of the existing laws and the tendency of the companies to focus wholeheartedly on the bottom line by hook or crook.

While it is perfectly justifiable for any business enterprise to make profits, the companies seem to rely only on one dictum. “The ends matter, means don’t”. In this scenario, we as consumers are mere fodders for their extravaganzas. Over and above the fancy salaries and huge spread outs, these companies are forgetting to place the customer first.

1) The billing related complaints top the number of complaints.

This is because this is the most tangible aspect of the company’s efficiency. Month after month, notice that how they charge for “misscellaneous expenses”, “plan charges”, “charges for Calling Line Indentification ( which is infact free for them anyway) and what not. The worst hit is the prepaid segment- where in, debarring the time when the promotional offers are not running, half of the talk time value of the card is taken upfront. Obviously, there is no break up of the costs apart from the taxes and “administrative costs”. It is surprsing that despite the technology for e recharges, which would amount to significant cost savings, it isn’t promoted. So, one has to pay for the inefficiencies of these companies- with the cost of the logistics and the distribution costs including the paltry dealer’s margin.

2)You cannot hold any company responsible for call drops or the way they bill you.

Traditionally, they charge you on per minute basis. Even though you may talk for,say 20 seconds, you have to pay for the unused 40 seconds. I took up the matter with the call centre people. Their response was, take it or leave it. It is the company’s policy and one cannot do anything about it. Well, as a customer, you have the right to be heard. When you saw the advertisment, the star couple or the star batsman didn’t even utter a word about how you are going to be billed for the calls. There is no respite for us in the coming future.The only way out is the per second billing which is more transparent.

3)Different plans seek to confuse the consumer rather than make any sense.

In the hey days when I started tracking this industry out of sheer curiousity, it was easy to follow because there weren’t many players. However, as the number of subscribers grew, it became increasingly clear that different segments of the market were required to be approached differently. Thereafter started a deluge of the plans. One after the other- it was tough to find out the hidden costs. TRAI wanted to inject some sense in the madness- they failed to evolve any reliable methodology for the consumers to choose minus the fine print.

4)Roaming rates are among the highest for the GSM players. Till to date, they haven’t evolved a transparent mechanism to calculate the costs involved and communicating the same to the consumers. Reliance and now Tata’s are trying to bring down the roaming costs. Yet, I feel, there is much to be done.

5)Have you ever tried to get your complaints sorted out through the customer care?

There have been many instances of the readers penning down their experiences with the customer care- which is designed to be more opaque than transparent. It takes a lot of cajoling or even threats to make them work. Geting the information is an exercise in patience and ingenuity. Barely out of college and underpaid, with absolutely no loyalty towards the company they are working for, it reflects in their attitude and they way they present themselves.

Of course, getting a new phone connection comes with absolutely no gurantee that it would work the way it has been advertised. For example, as a Reliance customer,I cannot exchange SMS’s with a BSNL customer; nor the picture messages come through. It wasn’t mentioned in the agreement I signed on with the company about the deficiency in the service and their lack of interconnect agreements. Similarly, BSNL’s SMS has become the butt of jokes- once sent, forget about the delivery in that instant. Wait for the festive season and you would find that the networks have jammed with the messages- clearly the opertors are not prepared to handle that load.

I salute the Indian customer’s resilience.

This can be only changed if you stand up for your rights and demand what is due to you and what you have paid for.

Tata’s are looking agressive now. With the change of guard, Ratan Tata has arrived at the scene. It may be noted that he was at the helm of the affairs when they launched Tata Indica. In my personal opinion, it was a generational shift towards car manufacturing- Tata’s have long been associated with those gas guzzling polluting trucks on Indian roads. In retrospect, they were not known for refinements in the engine or the product.

Restricting ourselves to Tata’s telecom venture,Tata’s have recently gone on an advertisng binge. It is advertising it’s Walky as a landline- ask BSNL and it insists that it is a mobile- thus attracting a hgher ADC component. The matter is subjudice and in the Supreme Court. Tata’a had appealed the TDSAT order- taking the matter to the Supreme Court.

The matter doesn’t end here. Tata’s are facing a huge congestion in their networks. This was recently borne out by the recent TRAI surveys. In addition to that, since the Walky matter is subjudice, I fail to understand the recent efforts to ramp up numbers. In case, the company loses the case in the Supreme Court, that would lead to increase in the prices for the customers on account of increased out go of the Access Deficit Charge payable to BSNL. In any case, they are holding up the customers with the lolly of free internetwork calls. Plus of course, advertising full talk time after deduction of the taxes.

There was another controversy about Tata’s and the Cellular Association. Their representative claimed that the recent offer of free incoming for the next two years would distort the number of subscribers and affect the final computation of the figures. This, he claimed, was in direct violation of the Department of Telecom regualtions.

Well, the fact is that the exact number is a BIG mystery. These cellular operators have theur own inhouse measures to calculate the subscribers. There is no independent valuation of the subscribers. On what basis can the repesentative claim the violation of the accepted norms? I believe that these companies routinely inflate the numbers to ensure the adequate stock market valuation- or in case of those companies who haven’t entered with their IPO’s, to brighten their prospects. It also helps to increase their value to those who wish to have a controlling stake and if they want to sell out on a later date. Obviously, it is very confusing to keep a track of the absolute numbers.

If the media reports are believed to be true, Tata may be willing to offer a stake in their telecom venture to a Russian company. It is too premature to assume as to how much they would offload. However, the recent notification of 74% FDI has to be seen in that light. Tata’s would surely want to be a suitable bride to be able to court eligible suitors.