Gagan Kaul Blog

It was a sudden shift from orange to pink for my mobile phone operator. From an extremely popular and widely recognized brand “Orange”, the mobile operator shifted itself to “Hutch” - a brand popular in Northern India. The transition was supposed to have no effect on the mobile subscribers and all the features and billing plans continued with the status quo. But the first change was imminent when the bill mailing envelope changed color from Orange-Black to Pink-White.

Whether this is related to the shift, or has reasons of its own, but the Hutch network in Mumbai has been deteriorating with time. The service has started to get irritaing with a lot of lost calls, network congestion error messages, erratic voice clarity, and conversations getting disconnected suddenly. It is high time that Hutch took note of this, and revamped its network to take care of such extreme problems. With Airtel on a subscriber addition binge, Hutch should take care not to let its existing customers shift to other operators because of bad network.

I had written about the highly priced GPRS service offering of Orange. However, it seems that Hutch has taken note of this and has reduced its entry level prices. But the data usage charges still remain the same for the INR 499 package; the same being higher for lower tariff plans. But the lower plans seem to be a good start for tapping the increasing pool of people interested in trying out the GPRS service. I am sure that Hutch must have seen an increase in the number of subscribers who have opted for this service.

With Reliance finalising its plan to provide GSM services as well, the competition is getting hotter. On one hand, mobile operators are looking at technologies like 3G and WiMax, but on the other their networks are getting badly marred because of high subscriber additions month-over-month; and no significant improvement in the infrastructure. The entry of Reliance into GSM space would not only mean increased competition and better tariff plans, but it would also put the existing GSM operators in Mumbai under a lot of pressure.

Whether the likes of Hutch take the new threat seriously, and ramp up their operations in order to counter Reliance’s entry - this is a question left for all of us to see within the coming six months. Expect a lot of action in the mobile telephony space. The space has suddenly become HOT and EXCITING.