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Why me again – asks subscriber

Today is an important day in Indian Telecom. You might be wondering what special is happening today that it will be registered in Indian Telecom History. It is the day when long awaited government directive of blocking non – IMEI handsets from making calls will be put into action. So the day has come when we really will be doing something on the name of security that has been talked for so long. Every responsible citizen of this country and after seeing a lot in past couple of years welcomes this decision.

Communication plays a very important role today in the growth of any country. Mobile in India has come down from luxury to a basic and is a part of life today. Its hard to separate from it and we can’t even imagine a single day without it. Today this part of life from many people will be taken off as there handsets will become a dummy set.

Mobile subscribers in India has already a lot to bear as there a lot of problems but not even a single place where they can go & talk. Quality of service, network jams, call drops, poor coverage, billing issues are very common topics that they face regularly. Now it is different one and different class of people will be affected the most but still it’s the subscriber again.

The point that strikes my mind again & again and that pushed me to finally write down my feelings on paper is “Why subscriber again?” I read through an article today on the same where a leading cellular operator said “Why subscribers are being penalised” as they have purchased handsets from markets without knowledge of such thing. Truly said and I am asking the same question to the Telecom community - Is it really the subscribers fault of purchasing such handsets ?

If the above words from an operator are true then why exactly it is like this. Every one will have their opinions right from the corporate to individuals but the point is simple if there were no such handsets then no such things might have taken place. If there was awareness on these products or the buyers had knowledge there might have been less users then 25 million people.

The bitter part of this is that majority users of such handsets are from a very low class. Today we are adding more than 10,000 subscribers per month. All this has been possible because of Government initiatives creating a competitive environment and operators response to all directives. The price war is at its peak taking mobile affordability to the lowest level possible. The people could have brought the low cost handsets of leading handset vendors but why they choose such handsets.

The main reason they bought these handsets is by just falling prey to basic human nature. The also want to have all that what high priced handsets have and which they can’t afford. A touch phone with all features of a high end handset at a price of not more than 3,000 Rs can make anybody to go for it.

The main point is from where these handsets flooded the Indian Market. There should have been a check on arrival of such items. Its not only the subscribers that are going to suffer but before them it’s the big handset vendors that saw their market being eaten by such handsets . It means it was not about an individual rather was an entire industry suffering because of it but still these handsets were able to make their market. And a good market as I see a lot in the bus I travel daily. Some times my Motorola and Sony Ericsson are shy to come out of my pocket.

The biggest reason for such handsets to strive was the support from the mobile networks. The big shock was that our 14 years old networks do not have the capability to stop such handsets from making calls. It has been taught in the class and industry that there is an EIR module which checks and registers IMEI but here it did not came out of theory. At the very first stance if this has happened then there could not have been special directive from the DOT to do this and with a deadline. Now every operator will have that implemented and at last these will be blocked.

Tomorrow when this comes into effect lot of those will be effected who did not understand the A to Z of all this. They just know how to make and receive calls and moreover understand that they can afford it. When tomorrow their phone will not ring then which is the place they should go and complaint. It will be the corner street shops and not sure they will be aware of such things.

With the subscribers again the operators will be loosing the mobile connections and money coming from them. As a total again it is an industry loss and we believe there will arrangements made by operators to handle such situation.

There should have been a social responsibility of avoiding all this. COAI has taken initiative and its really good to see that a organisation always caring for Indian mobile industry interests came forward but what about individual operators what actually they have done. They might have done a lot but truly it was not visible in our daily lives. ICA is willing to go a step ahead by bringing second handset sales on papers.

There is always a beginning, this one is for Indian Mobile Industry. I hope all these people who will loose their right of using mobile from tomorrow will be compensated one way or the other. Mobile operators has done a lot to make communication possible for all from class to mass and surely they will go on with the same.

The point is not to get who is responsible but rather why this has happened. It is common responsibility for all right from DOT to mobile operators to mobile users. As a user we should be aware of what we buy, does it match to the directives that government has given. There should be more awareness about mobiles as we do for other electronic products.

Apart from this there should be social advertisements and teaching on the usage of mobiles. Yesterday I read a girl came under train while she was taking on the phone. Its true individual should be aware of it but there is no big loss if the industry can run such campaigns about mobile usage and awareness.

Bhanu Pratap
Business Analyst
ZTE India R&D Center

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