Hutch has finally made a deal with the Vodafone (and supping with the devil). Vodafone would have something exciting to show to it’s shareholders and the the man in the eye of the storm until recently, Arun Sarin, would feel less constipated. All in all, a good deal for the Ruia’s who until recently were a failed business house, who must be thanking the heavens for a sudden windfall. All in all, this has only focussed the limelight on the complicated share holding pattern in Hutch.

So expect a new “wave of advertising” crap to be unleashed soon with the “re-branding” of the merged identity. Hutch changed it’s colours from Orange to Pink with an expensive ad campaign in order to ” re-energise” their brand image without any corresponding improvement in their customer service. I have been mailing and requesting their customer care to look in the issue of some network glitch in the place where I work without any response from them. Perhaps they don’t think that it is the customer that matters the most. I have been forced to give up my number and shift to Airtel.

Shifting to Airtel was without much of a hassle. Although, their Interacive Voice Response System tends to drone on for hours together. So far, there has been no complaint about the network and my request for keeping me out of the advertising spam has been fairly adhered to. Otherwise, with them, it is a continuous barrage of messages, much like the spam I get here to increase the size of my privates (as if it would really make me a better lover!). Mercifully, they have not yet stooped to such lows.

In my opinion, it would make sense to finally issue the orders for number portability (something that has been introduced in Canada recently). Perhaps in the future, with the unbundling of local loop, we might be able to choose our own ISP’s. However, issues which are “customer friendly” are hardly adhered to and this is something that I have been stressing here often.

I was surprised to get an email from VSNL which insisted that they wanted to discuss some issues related to the blog and wanted to set the record straight. They wanted my contact details; I asked them to follow it up on the email. So far, they haven’t reverted back.

Interestingly, VSNL Broadband seems to be on the Sify way and I fail to understand that why don’t the Tata’s see the clear writing on the wall to ship out of a sector that they have bungled. I have always held this notion that they would perhaps sell out at a later date. Of course, it would be a usual media circus and despite the old bag of tricks, it is the GSM lobby that is persisting over the CDMA players.

I believe that much of it has to do with the exciting range of the handsets available which limits the choice with the CDMA players. Plus, the high royalty fees that they have to pay. In my opinion, it would have been worthwhile to sink in a few crores to set up manufacturing units or own system of standards instead of paying the royalties. So much for the “management gurus” who mouth the prescriptions so passionately.

Some big mess! It would take ages to untangle the whole thing that we have landed ourselves in.