Daily Archives: 24th Jan 2006

Hutch making life worse?

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The recent change in colours from ornage to pink made no sense to me; the answer was hidden in corporate crap about “branding”. Pink is unconvential colour and so is the Chinese pug as a mascot. Is hutch “gone to the dogs”?

I haven’t used Hutch ever but this is a low down from a Hutch subscriber (link via Cyberia). It makes no sense whatsoever to have hidden charges to have your customers react in horror; getting panned online and offline, abusive comments (as the title says it all on Cyberia-”pink robbery continues”).

I wonder whether the company officials really take care of these aspects. As they spend millions (to gain millions of customers- even BBC now reports that), how much do they really factor out these issues?

I don’t think that anyone from Hutch would get pertubed and have a change of heart- they want to be mean and ruthless to survive. In the end they get it up “nicely in theirs” (so to say) from dissatisfied customers.

Next time, I am sure you are going to think before you down your hard earned money for a Hutch connection. Another post on cyberia laments his decision to stick with Hutch complaining about the high cost of the Hutch World access. I heard they charge per kb! Tentacles of misery worse than BSNL? Incidentally, Hutch GPRS’s cost is way too high. This poor subscriber has no option except to stick on with Hutch. I understand that his plan was changed without he being informed that the initial lolly was for a short term. So much for the communication and oversized tongued pug.

Airtel:End of blackberrys?

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Another link from Inquirer which reports about Research in Motion(RIM) patent infringements. Does it mean the end of blackberry support in India?

They had earlier denied the same; however, it remains to be seen as to how it would affect the exisiting users. Is there any competing platform to Blackberry? Please let me know in the comments.

An update from Ars technica about Blackberry’s.

In November 2005, Judge Spencer declined to enforce a March 2005 US$450 million settlement between RIM and NTP, instead ruling it was invalid and raising the spectre of the enforcement of an injunction against the sale of BlackBerrys in the US and the operation of RIM’s network.

Four years after the dispute started, here’s where the case stands: RIM stands guilty of infringing patents that may not be valid after all and is still at risk the court’s deciding to enforce its injunction, while NTP’s patent portfolio is looking lighter in all the wrong places.

At the very least, it looks like BlackBerry users’ fears that the US BlackBerry network will go dark will not be realized anytime soon.

Airtel and Hutch can breathe easier now.

Personal take

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Over the period of time, I have been stuck with a deep sense of cynicism that nothing in this nation moves. Partly because you would want to see India as a shining star in the world worth emulation.

However, the pace is changing rapidly and slowly we are getting stuck in the vortex of past, unable to extract ourselves out of it.

Telecom is one major issue. Increasingly, my focus is turning towards the looming digital divide. If we want to ensure that the whole nation is a partner in the progress, we need to work on this issue. Together.

Unfortunately, the principal actors to ensure the spread of Information Technology are the familiar villians- either as a part of the lame duck coalition at the Centre or the massive behemoth that is akin to an ageing dinosaur. Mercifully, the ageing animal cannot replicate itself; or else we would have seen it’s ugly spawn all around. You wish to give it a nice kick in it’s balls and then run. But you never know how it may react.

Despite the sense of cynicism in recent times, I shall look forward to write on the bridge the digital divide. Why is it important, you may ask. Well, the progress of a nation can only be counted as an integrated whole. So far, we have made a tremendous progress in multiplying and increasing our population. A fact that the entire world endorses. Never mind the depressing nay sayers, our rapid population growth would soon over shadow everything else. One thing that we can be “justifiably” proud of!

(At the back of my mind though- why did the mothers decide to have most of them to be left loose and work in BSNL/MTNL?)

India is way behind China in IT front. So says the Inquirer. It has the report from Bombay- Rajesh Jain quoting the pathetic computer spread and even more pathetic “broadband”. A worthy thought for the dumb asses in NASSCOM, who like to bray(crow) about the “IT SUPERPOWER”? It is a “feel good” factor for couple of them; for rest of us, the infastructure hassles. And BSNL!