Ring Side view of Indian Telecom Circus
This is one of the best ever plans from Airtel. 1Mbps unlimited via WiFi. Wow. It’s a “true broadband”. I have been lucky enough to migrate to a newer plan after I got a pay revision and I have gifted myself the new speed. The biggest gain has of course been watching the amazing videos posted online. It would also speed up the torrents big time.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for proper implementation of the Broadband policy so that the distance between the haves and havenots comes down.
The award singularly goes to Reliance Telecom. They have created a monstrosity which is growing by the minute; they are clueless about the same. If Anil Ambani is reading this, dude, wrap up your operations and sit pretty on your paper wealth.
For all practical purposes, Reliance has one of the worst billing practices. I think, it dates back from the time when they started. They charge you from the time you click on connect without waiting for the call to mature. They have one of the worst customer care services I have ever encountered. So far, I have never been able to connect to their customer “hotline” and routine mails go unanswered. They expect you to pay and pay alone without justifying for the costs incurred to the customer. I have been in dispute with this company regarding network issues; it has been over a month and no action was taken.
Further, I had signed up for their e-bills in the hope that the morons would be happy to send me the bill on time. No such luck. They bar my outgoing calls on 27th of every month; even though my billing cycle is much later than the date. On more than two occasions, I have received their bills on 9th of the following month; almost late by 2 weeks!
Anil Ambani makes tall claims about “servicing” the customer; they indeed are milking them dry. For all practical purposes, Reliance is one of the worst telecom operator ever; a far cry from the glorious days when they had an excellent network coverage all over the country. It has fallen from grace and is unable to recover from this.
Buy at your own risk and peril!
It was very disappointing to see that there was hardly any response to the query posted on the forums. Majority of the users are happy to go on a clickitivism spree where they think that they have done their duty. For all practical purposes, the net user base in this country is pathetic. Although, they would crib about the “connection speeds” but when it comes to getting down to the brasstacks, they are found wanting.
Cynicism and apathy are not warranted in the scheme of the things. If the user base of the country wants something to be done, they have to fight for their rights instead of cribbing over the state of affairs. This is precisely, the reason why companies like Reliance flourish.
This is assinine. As the newer developing countries integrate with the growing Internet, it can easily bring down the nation to a grinding halt given the frequency with which these cable cuts are now happening. Its frustrating to be logged on with a broadband that works slower than a dial up! Damn!
Nevertheless, it reminded me of the good old days of shitty Internet connectivity and the all the prayers sent towards the sky with ample cursing of the nuts sitting over the sprawling telecom infrastructure. Frankly, had it not been for them, I would have been writing this blog in the first case!
This happens to be my personal opinion; surfing the internet from the comfort of my warm quilt with my laptop in this is freezing cold minus the hassles of being tied down because of the wires. Wifi has made the life very easy; although I had a bitch of a time to make it work on Ubuntu. It isn’t turned on by default; I had to download and install windrivers (unfortunately since Lenovo doesnt come out with stuff that works outside the box). Nevertheless, it was worth it all the trouble.
I am still searching for a capable smart phone in order to ease up my twisted life a bit. Having a Wifi enabled handset would logically be an extension of my desktop. Literally. I have managed to make my bluetooth work on Ubuntu and sync my Nokia to it. I have a back up; if I have a Wifi enabled handset it would allow me to catch up on the VoIP market as well.
Annoyances remain. The current crop of the VoIP players donot allow any degree of interconnectivity. All of them have “secretive protocols”; no one sticks to open and secure standards. It would be great to call a Skype customer from a Gizmo enabled set and thus bringing about true interoperability. I dont see this happening anytime soon; for the time being I’d have to rant about it. It is the similar case with the chat clients; although Pidgin has made things easier to connect to different chat protocols and all the while I can connect to them all! I needed something similar for VoIP; i guess when there is enough demand, someone would find a way to this messy problem as well.
Nevertheless, I was thrilled to know that Wifi enabled handsets can work with those carriers who can offer UMA for phone calling over WiFi networks. It’s a technology that allows you to make voice calls over WiFi and switch fairly seamlessly between GSM and WiFi calls. No need for a separate VoIP account and application on the phone (i.e.: Skype).UMA works only with GSM and it’s technically not VoIP as are SIP services. UMA provides a pipeline or tunnel for pure GSM to travel through via IP.
This means that an end to end connected network like Airtel could easily offer something like this. All it needs to do is to cut deals with smartphones manufacturer; most likely it’s going to be some Chinese crap. Sell it aggressively with it’s broadband connections. It’s a win win deal ; at end of the day everyone likes to yap for free in this country. Routing the calls through Wifi is cheap; very cheap. I am not sure whether there are any security implications or not. Unless there isn’t, it would take real guts and grunge marketing efforts on Airtel’s behalf to make this happen.
They would have a real deal on that count.
This is not the year end prediction but sadly all the action is taking place in the mobile arena. We are not going to see anything major happening in wireline business because it’s not “cool”.
First, the contentious number portability system is going to be launched initially in the four metros. I can bet that this would come into play only after Reliance launches it’s GSM service. For very obvious reasons because it would be betting big on the churn specially from the lower end of the market. It has already placed orders for “millions of handsets” and is looking forward to flood Indian market with “choice”. Expect some rude shocks for the incumbents.
The exact mechanism isn’t clear but there is going to be a big mess initially. I am sure that the operators would want to put across punitive “termination charges”, get host of clearances etc etc before you can heave a sigh of relief from it’s evil clutches. Yet, there is no differentiator between the Shylocks and the Satans in the market because at end of the day, they are all part of the same shit hole. Expect some high voltage drama here.
Second, the 3G licenses would be issued. There is no final word as to how this is going to be achieved; we are waiting for the Minister to feed fat on more money. By the way, Pioneer has a damning expose on their wrong doings over the past one year. (Link Source) Unless,Mr Minister is fed fat in his Swiss Bank account (Indian banking system sucks) we are not going to see anything move in this direction.
Mobile value added services is not going to add anything extra unless operators offer free porn. Imagine, free streaming porn without any restriction and daily MMS scandals! Since, Indians are loath to accept anything that comes out in the open, they could start streaming this for select few, obviously for a higher remuneration. I wonder why no one has thought about it. Callback ringtones are a passe’. So, not much of an action there too.
Mobile Virtual Network Operators would perhaps be legalised under immense pressure from the business house of Tatas. They are very keen to expand their “brand”; I have not seen any major advertising campaign from Virgin Mobile in recent times. They are spiked and spooked and relegated to some corner uncared for. How would that really matter? Does having more operators actually make sense? I believe that one size fits all strategy is not feasible. There are scores of people who would be happy to make unlimited outgoing calls for a fixed sum. Some people like to call telemarketing companies for pranks. Some people like to call fixed “hotline numbers” which offer “anonymity” without realising that the calls are routed within India alone. Some people like SMS alone. I feel that there would be companies to cater to such sections of deviants alone unless someone wants to prove me wrong.
So basically, we are left with no real action. 3G and number portability would be launched when Reliance announces it’s intention to start it’s GSM services. 3G licenses would be auctioned when Mantri ji has a green signal from his swiss banker. MVNO is an old tune from equally old flute; after virgin’s debacle no one wants to burn their backsides.
Where does the landline fit it? What of the frigging e governance issues? What of the “e learning”? Sheesh. Such lofty ideals would be done to waste? Who has the time to bother about such issues?
Although, I do see some reduction in the price when the price of international bandwidth crashes; the demand from the cyber coolies reduces as a result of economic downturn and telecom operators would be forced to deploy their “excessive bandwidth” for residential purposes. We might see the death of dial up; unless BSNL wants to keep it on a life support system. Since, they are only ones on the national scene offering it for free! Morons.
Happy 2009!
Jadoo means magic in Hindi. For all practical purposes, MTNL has pulled out the proverbial rabbit out of the hat when they launched these services recently.
The “pundits” claim that this would give MTNL a first mover advantage over the existing players. 3G auctions have been in a mess; with regulations changed over at whims and fancies of the chosen few. TRAI doesnt have any locus standi over the existing state of affairs which makes for a very disappointing scenario. Nevertheless, the age of the “fast mobile speeds” are in the offing and full fledged services would roll out from next year onwards.
If the MTNL would have applied their minds to this golden goose, they could have easily sold branded 3G handsets. They are expecting a certain percentage of people to upgrade their existing connections or use their handsets as modems to connect to the laptops. A USB dongle is expected to cost around 3.5K with no word yet on the quantum of the downloads allowed. If the boffins are going to restrict the limits to say 500 MB or 1 GB or something like that, it makes no sense and it is a self defeatist service.
I do expect a significant percentage of people to shift to the mobile Internet; partly because of the high cost of access on landline and partly because most of them do not like to stay stuck on one place for net access. The cost of the handsets is falling over; Nokia and their ilk are falling all over the place to bring better technology in your hands. This would be a big differentiator for MTNL to shore up their revenues via value added services since ring tones and call back services have been done to death. The mobile operators have to think beyond their standard fare to increase their share; improve billing and introduce mechanisms for quicker complaint resolution.
Rajesh Jain has interesting take on the “red and blue” mobile market in context to 3G services and the VAS.
I am watching MTNL’s roll out with interest. For all practical purposes, 3G remains the ONLY high point in 2008 in which otherwise has been a flat and dull year for broadband penetration.
What I see across the forums and the boards is cynicism writ large on the reader’s faces. I fail to understand their pre occupation with “doing something” but when it comes to some real action on the ground, they are found wanting in their abilities.
For many years, I have been trying to write about the “reality” of the telecom sector forcing a view point thats contrarian to the conventional idiocy dished out by the conventional media. What I don’t foresee is an effective redressal mechanism to sort out the issues that work out against the customers. If we are forced by the system and big money to suffer crappy services, it’s because most of the customers have their heads dished up their anuses. Unfortunately, none seems to be wiser regarding this.
If you are reading this, I write in utter disgust about the state of affairs.
Oh by the way, the inline spell checker in Opera rocks. Somethings are indeed worth living for!
