There are things that don’t cease to amaze me. Top of the mind recall is the massive “re-structuring” exercise to “re-brand” Airtel “logo”. It is rumored that the entire jing bang cost them nearly 300 crores.

If that is the case, lets see what 300 crores can get. For once, they could have invested in better human resources, beef up their call centers (instead of out sourcing them to dick heads), lay down more lines for broadband, subsidize the access to resources and extend fibre to my premises, if at all.

Of course, those on mobiles would say that this is good serious money to tone up the network and perhaps improve the service delivery front.

No nothing of that sort happened.

Instead we have Sunil Bharti Mittal sporting a T Shirt emblazoned by his logo (in Delhi’s winter chill, perhaps) posing on for the cameras splashed on the news papers. Hey look, thats what serious money can get you. Publicity. Which also means that none of the “serious questions” would ever be raised.

Why this sudden change? Does Airtel want to reflect on it’s global image and makeover? I am not an expert in these matters but seriously, I don’t ever give a F to the logo change. No one gives a damn to a company they are dependent on for their mobile telephony needs and I see Airtel morphing into another BSNL, a tired run of the mill operator who has ceased to “delight”.

Blame it on my cynicism or year end blues or whatever. As this blog grows in it’s age (and perhaps maturity and depth), I see the same old jaded faces and “excitement” at the “fastest growing industry”. Lies and damned lies.

Perhaps the idiots would ever bother to ponder and reflect on the wasted 300 crores. As someone on Twitter had pointed it out that it resembles a worm squiggling over splattered red paint. I am not sure how accurate this comment really is but well there is a good take on Faking news.

This is what as per the Open Magazine’s web site. At present, it is seeing huge traffic; I had accessed it through Google Cache but someone has taken a grab of the web site and converted it to a pdf. I have embedded it here.

“Tell me what should I tell them_” _ OPEN Magazine

Scams can go viral and we have a couple of nominations lined up for asshole of the year award.

One thing is for sure. There are many like me who hate the media. This is the time to show them the true power of bloggers and Twitterverse. Media cannot trend and follow this up. F*** them hard. Specially the likes of NDTV who are a whole set of bloody fixers and lobbyists.

The rumored plans are here and a very interesting discussion in on in the forums.

I think that they have screwed it up given the fact that BSNL has upped the ante as far as tariffs are concerned. With the imminent launch of Airtel/ Vodafone and other private players, it remains to be seen how 3G market would shape up. I think that there is a going to be a big market for the data cards given the pathetic landline access.

Interestingly, here’s something from the Tata’s end user agreement:

Mobile internet is not to be used for other activities (e.g. using your handset as a modem, voice or video over the internet, peer to peer file sharing). Should you exceed your fair usage limit or such use be detected, TTSL reserves right to take action by restricting bandwidth, and/or suspension of data browsing and/ or temporarily suspend subscriber account in case of data usage in violation of fair usage policy.

Ha ha ha. For all practical purposes, I wonder whether they can actually “control tethering”!!

I wonder where did these assholes spring from!

This is taken from the forums:

I usually refrain from speculating on the price wars or report on the “latest trends” but to be honest, these people have screwed it up totally.