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.
I shifted to Docomo because of one reason alone. It had a clutter free experience as far as it’s GPRS was concerned. I needed to be connected because of some degree of convenience built in. My documents are in the cloud, I am always connected to my mail (K9 mail app for Android is the best one) and my android handset connects seamlessly to my Ubuntu Desktop as a failsafe mechanism to connect to Internet in case my BSNLWifi conks up.
Docomo was supposed to launch it’s 3G services from today but it remains a classic example of how NOT to do things. First and foremost is that there ought to be a clear line of communication about the services, what it entails, the expected costs and charges and how the existing GPRS users are going to be migrated to 3G. Common sense dictates that customer care should be informed accordingly and be trained instead of a dumb shit moron trying to answer the queries from “educated and enlightened customers”. Instead, Docomo has failed to inform me in advance about the same. I registered for their “newsletter” but it seems that their backend has conked off. Who is their provider? IBM? Pooh pooh.
Spewing out the venom is not going to help here and neither going to make a difference to the dodos sitting at the top. But we have some expectation from a company that has made a big name for itself in Japan. Yet, at the same time, one should not forget that it is a the Tata’s pedigree which is at work and they are known to pick up the worst among the best for manning their services. This is reflected in their thought process, their work and general approach to telecom services.
Ideally, instead of ham handed approach, they ought to have been clear and transparent. They should have clearly mentioned the service areas, the expectations from their service, the expected speeds and network and the possible charges.
I have always opposed the 3G services and instead always argued for stepping up investments in wireline. The major reason is that 3G can support “fast speeds” but is limited to spectrum and when more customers join the party, it is going to be a major disaster for the company. This has been seen in mature markets where 3G is synonymous with pathetic services. Further, high costs for “unlimited access” is plain stealing. No one likes the crap of “fair usage policies”. For most, GPRS is decent approach because mobilebroadband sucks.
Lets see what the company has to offer and how it plans to market it. It has set up a separate page for the same and I am wondering who okayed this kind of pure crap. (with loads of grammatical errors and mistyped words- emphasis mine).
Here’s from the horse’s mouth:
Now DO the new with 3G, at a refreshingly fast pace. Coming from the world leaders in 3G, Tata DOCOMO 3G is an all-new way to experience life on the go!
Life on 3G is definitely fastera, richer & exciting. With Tata DOCOMO 3G, your mobile phone is no more just a device that makes calls – it””s a TV, a theatre, a gaming console and a satellite camera all at once. Do much more with your smartphone than you ever imagined!
Now can anyone of these dumb fucks ever care to explain about “satellite camera”? PMSL
It also makes tall claims about playing “3D games”. And it speaks about “better network security”. WHOA!!
I suspect that some research agency is behind their PR efforts. Here is what one dumb fcuk had to say about Tata Docomo 3G on DNA (Newspaper) and I quote:
Sujay Misra, managing director of AZ Research Partners, says one of the reasons for this is their subscriber-base is predominantly low-end. “You need to have the right instrument (high-end mobiles and smartphones) to get access to 3G services. Also, BSNL and MTNL have not bothered to educate their customers about the 3G services,” he said.
Hence, Tata Docomo is a MONUMENTAL FAILURE even before it has seen it’s commercial activity. There are people crowing about this company getting it’s “first mover advantage” but other companies in the fray are investing in 3G for spectrum and more customers. Data services are not even on their minds. The reason? There is no dedicated system for “apps” and they are sold as “value added services” to shore up “extra revenue” but not at the expense of voice calls. They still make profits on voice calls. This is a heterogeneous market and no one size fits all. Despite the marketing chutzpah, voice still remains bread, butter (and jam) for these companies. Give or take SMS.
This is important for us to know that the advertising watchdog in Britain works unlike the Advertising Standards Council of India which is toothless “regulator”. No one gives a fuck to the poor sods who claim “moral high ground”.
It seems like a redundant organization; I have emailed them on previous occasions but to no avail. Till the time it is backed by a proper law, this regulation is useless. For the same reason, it is not fair that people from the same fraternity are asked to draw up legislation that is required to govern them! No wonder, it is going to be pathetic because the law by itself would have enough gaping holes to allow an elephant to pass through.
British Telecom was making fraudulent claims (as per the report) and the other “competitors” crowed and brayed to the council to retract it’s misleading claims. UK has allowed for last mile access which means that both incumbent and the company taking advantage of the same are locked in over the same set of customers. Which ultimately means that although there is a strong incentive for oligopolies, the need to grow their customer base would ultimately make them competitive.
In Indian scenario, these bastards get together on a fancy platform and whine about ‘lack of infrastructure”. Unfortunately, it needs some action of ground. Agreed that the corruption is all time high and that companies have ganged up together to throttle the gateways, still if you create enough demand for your product, there is bound to be growth in business. Mobile telephony did not happen in thin air. Companies promoted it heavily; mobiles have grown to a large extent (although the exact numbers are disputed), a genuine “demand” for SMS was created (although there is next to nothing in that space in terms of applications) and it’s now after a “critical mass” of population, has it become profitable. Although I would still dispute the notion of “cheapest fares” which is essentially crap claim.
The same has to be done for Broadband. UK remains a bad example of telephony regulation. Although it is “developed” but large swathes of this tiny nation are lying in the dark (in terms of broadband coverage). BT has feasted on taxpayers money just like our home grown BSNL. Yet, some of the organs of government DO work there.