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.

Scoring the need for “expansion”, Brit firms have been expanding in the Indian Telecom “party”. Much of the talk is focussed on the expanding user base (at the rate of 6 million subscribers per month- you must be bullshitting me). While it all sounds “plausible”, depending on the whether or not you trust the figures from morons of all hues- the so called Cellular Operators Association of India.

What we are seeing here is a gradual consolidation of the Indian market leaving the consumers with less and less choice. In hte future, the so called “churn rates” would cease to have any meaning given the fact that we are being left with no choice.

Vodafone’s entry in Indian market has been followed by British Telecom’s entry in the national long distance calling arena. I doubt that with increased “competiton” we would get to see any drastic fall in the prices. Not until we have carrier access codes giving the people a real choice to carry your voice traffic from your preferred operator.

I have no idea about the mode of BT’s delivery of services. Would they lay down the copper cables or the national backbone or tie up with a company like Airtel? Is there any real need to have another player in the muddled waters? Time alone would tell. I believe that we would hitch up to provide “global managed services”- whatever that crap means.

Vodafone’s entry marks another interesting point- something that I didnot realise earlier. They would be willing to provide cheaper international prices something that other operators could loose out. They made all the right noises about the rural market and dirt cheap Chinese phones (YUCK) from ZTE.

Another “point” raised at Gigaom was the expectation that Vodafone would enter the Broadband market! Not only this is off the mark but presents the writer in a very poor light as far as the “anal-ytical” insight goes. From a pure play in the mobile arena (with one of the lousiest data plans in the market) to a fixed line provider starting from a clean slate in the fixed line business would only call for a suicide. Arun Sarin could manage the funds from the sell off in minorty stakes in other countries to raise the cash for Hutch buyout. This cannot be glossed over in the light of their 21 billion Pounds Sterling last year which has put Sarin under much fire for mismanaging the entire show.

Vodafone’s strategy would perhaps be based on the consolidation of 2.5 G services and then leverage it’s strength in the 3G applications from experience in UK and Europe. All the while it hopes that consumers might just want to make that quantum shift all the while by overpricing the services delivery.

This idiocy on the part of people having huge resources at their disposal refuses to die out.

It’s interesting to see and read about people bashing Dataone online using the same ISP to connect to the online communities! I saw one for Hutch and the movement to spearhead the “broadband revolution” in India.

In my opinion, it is a small user base among the Internet users that bitches and moans about the Broadband Narrowband crap stuff. It doesn’t mean anything to the thick skinned idiots. If you are reading this, a middle finger for you.