Cellphones in USA & India

If you are an Indian and have come to the US recently, you will be ’shocked’ to see how closed and primitive the US cell phone market is! Well, except for the iPhone which is by no means primitive — but its ‘locked’ to the not-so-popular AT&T network.

Imagine getting charged for receiving SMS messages! Its really a sad story out here. There is no easy way for an average person to buy a phone of his or her choice without signing up for a contract. And the contact is normally 2 years! Which means, you must be a subscriber of that cell phone provider for the period of the contract at an agreed upon price. The average cost of plan such plans - around 40$ to 45$ a month (data plans would cost extra!), which is way to expensive compared to India!!! And if you want to switch to an other network, you need to cancel you current contract by paying an “early termination fee”.

If you want to buy a phone without a contract, you need to spend a fortune and its equally painful to get a service from a good provider (without buying a new handset). In other words, its in no way a free market. And, clearly, the down side to this entire thing is … the entire US cell phone market is lagging years behind the ‘world’!

Do check out this very interesting article on the US Cell phone industry which compares the US cellphone industry model with the “The Soviet Ministry Model”….: Free My Phone

I feel privatization is a good thing for India, but competition is very important too. And the most important thing is there must be a very effective regulatory authority like TRAI, which kind of enforces the rules to which the companies in India comply. Kudos to the Indian telephone industry!!

I wish India never gets into a situation like the US when it comes to telecommunications.

3 comments | October 23rd, 2007 at 12:30am

ICICI Bank - A bad experience for many

I had only verbally heard about the bad experiences people are having with ICICI Bank, but this just proves it!

Came across this page (do read it! - opens in a new window) via madman’s page.

I have a account with ICICI bank because its our salary account, and we are kind of forced to use ICICI Bank. And since we have a salary account, we get a decent service. But yes, the credit card department, and the call centre sucks big time. That’s my personal experience.

They put you on hold for 5 to 10 mins. (just imagine listening to the same junk music/tone/adverts continuously), and then there is no guarantee that you will get to speak to someone or your problem would be solved. Infact, today I was put on hold for around 7 mins, and after that the call as abruptly disconnected!. Next time I call the call center, I get to speak to a totally new person, and start from scrap describing the problem. The people at the call center just promise to do things, and nothing actually happens. If it happens, then you are really your luck.

Hope K V Kamath reads this!.

My advice to all - Avoid ICICI as far as possible. Many people predict that the bank would collapse in a few years from now. Have a account with any nationalized bank.

Personally, I have an account with SBI and keep a minimum amount in ICICI.

842 comments | April 27th, 2005 at 10:16pm