One in every third prepaid subscriber is fake. If this isn’t “chilling”, it ought not to be to you dear readers because I have been asserting here that the valuations of these companies have been artificially bloated.

Of course, it wouldn’t be affecting the execs in their plush offices because it is the deceit that keeps them comfortably on their asses. During a routine criminal investigation in Haryana, the police discovered huge number of connections in a single person’s name. After further probes, they discovered that a number of telephone connections had been booked in the name of fictitious entities. In simple lay man’s terms it means that anyone could potentially “misuse” the phone numbers without the fear of being traced.

The Haryana police booked a couple of Airtel employees and it took considerable resources (my guess) to avoid a PR disaster for them. The whole matter seems to be subdued and suppressed and talked off only in hushed up tones. It is not getting the attention it deserves. By rough estimates, if the proper physical verification takes place now, it would shave off one third of the numbers which the companies gloat about. No wonder, Ramachandran, COAI chief, is keen only for the random verification of the subscribers. They cite huge logistics problems for the same.

This has grave implications for the internal security of this nation. In the name of driving up subscritions and ramping up subscribers, the norms have been thrown out. It didn’t apply to them in the first case either.

Getting a pre paid is simple. One has to furnish a “proof” of residence/ photgraph. That’s it. No questions asked. The “verification” is done at the level of the shopkeepers who is supposed to know the local residents. A little “consideration” and things get rolling for a new connection. Prepaids cannot be traced to the original subscribers and the SIM card can be destroyed and a new one had.

Post paid norms are tougher and no wonder, I get to hear delays on the part of the companies to verify everything at their end.

This wouldn’t be solved overnight and is a clear cut violation of licensing norms. Why haven’t their licences been cancelled?

If anything that defies common sense and logic, it’s Tata’s owned VSNL. As part of cash and buy option, Tata’s inherited a rotten Government set up that refuses to shed it’s bunch of nincompoops. They do have people sitting on in the board rooms with fancy titles like “corporate strategists” with the company’s goals not really defined in any concrete manner.

I was reading an account of VSNL buying up end to end bandwidth with the promise that it would “revolutionise” the Broadband access. Retail broadband is floundering; their corporate connections seem to be shifting to greener pastures like Airtel / Reliance. While there is no break up of numbers, if a company is reducing it’s prices, it only heralds a serious trouble for itself.

In the monopolistic set up, a company has no initiative to improve it’s services. We all know from BSNL’s attitude and it’s poker faced idiots drawing their salaries. The erstwhile country cousin, VSNL came in from the same umbilical cord that noursihed the unshapely appariation of socialism- BSNL. The misfigured ugly contortion gobbled up the market share and despite being turned into a “corporation” refused to shed it’s genes. Given the fact that it is unweildly in it’s present avatar, it is gasping for breath of fresh air.

Not long ago, VSNL hired the best brains in legal business to defend it’s “cause” for NOT reducing the prices for bandwith. Until someone’s dark alleys of the mind fields lit up and they decided to assert themselves as regulators and forced VSNL to reduce the same. BSNL and the end customers were overjoyed and we could see the birth of “unlimited” connection- a newly invented lexicon that was possible because of the efforts of committed few.

Here in this respect, I beg to differ from one Mr. Sunil Jain, who is the editor of Business Standard. I don’t share his exuberance in his write up on VSNL’s recent move to slash the bandwidth tarriffs and Maran’s intervention to that effect. He gave the example of Special Economic Zones or SEZ’s being a multiplier effect on economy (infact a disaster for the Finance Ministry) and if I remember right, his own newspaper had opposed the setting up of SEZ’s.

Maran’s pronouncements came in much after TRAI had set in high fees for the private players to set up Long Distance telephony. Maran had it reduced and as a result a host of companies joined in to offer their services. I am not happy with the private players coming in and then, carrier access codes haven’t been formalised. Till the time the policy matters are clear cut, it wouldn’t make any sense to rejoice.

Here in comes the rub. Realising that VSNL would be raped if they didn’t make any efforts to protect their markets, they have resorted to slashing prices across board. It seems that it would ONLY benefit the corporate customers for their VPN roll outs and would perhaps marginally affect the retail pricing options. VSNL has all the power in the world to offer whatever speeds they want and not cheat it’s customers with their shoddy “customer care”; i.e. if the number of comments are to go by elsewhere on this blog. It hasn’t happened for obvious reasons and we have a notional presence of broadband across India.

I’d keep my eyes peeled on in for anything new. I have a strong reason to believe that Tata’s might exit from the retail broadband initiatives in the coming few years. They have NO presence in the fixed line business and perhaps spreading themselves too thin with the DTH initiatives and their mobile telephony business which is tanking them in. Their advertisements reflect the despondency and not long ago they had Saurav Ganguly and Sania Mirza as their brand ambassadors, both of them loosers in their fields.

Some day they might just admit defeat and tank out of the Indian market like a capsized boat.