The TOI reported a couple of days back that the Telenor group is considering quitting India for good. This only means a death knell for a rather successful telco – Uninor which is a joint venture between Unitech and Telenor groups who are into real estate and telecom respectively in India and Norway. The rate at which Uninor has been handing over discounts on prepaid minutes and showing no interest in launching postpaid services, this possibility only looks more realistic than impossible.

If this happens this will be one of the historic failures of a telco in India who is just upcoming showing lots of promise. But however this will not be the end of Unitech’s telco jaunt. All Telenor have to do is to sell their stakes to the likes of Bharti or Vodafone or perhaps IDEA telecom and exit the country. Whatever happens would be an easy buy for these other companies, but not so sweet for the consumers who are using these services. With Uninor also not getting 3G service spectrum, things look bleak for the telco in the days to come!

Today I happened to see a report on mobile providers and their service efficiency standards as provided by each individual mobile provider to TRAI. It would be interesting to note the trends on how these mobile providers are doing, and gauge for yourself who you need to be associated with. First lets look below for what info was shared:

All the information is for a month in terms of percentages. So lets see who fares how ?

• Downtime: refers to how often network was not available for making calls. Needless to assume BSNL was down 1% of the time (the highest) showing how bad their network setup and problem resolution is. Airtel comes in second as no surprise. 0.49% of the time, their network is down for whatever reason which is bad. While others are all in an average respectable band of 0.1 to 0.2%, the best is Tata CDMA network which is at an all time best of 0.03% (while their GSM suffered at 0.2%)
• Accessibility: refers to how often you were able to make calls within the network. BSNL and Airtel are two notches below 100%, while Uninor for all practically tops the chart. I have my own doubts on Aircel whether they meet 99% at all, since they do have access issues (not dropped calls) even when their signal is strong.
• Drop rate of calls: refers to how often your calls were dropped. Airtel and BSNL shamelessly lead the pack aligning with reality. Uninor trails the pack showing a respectable maintainability in connection. I can vouch for uninor in this aspect since I had a long call for 1.5 hours without a hitch using uninor. No surprises here at all !
• calls with good voice quality: is self explanatory, though what is needed to be stressed on here is that just maintaining call continuity does not mean its a good call. The voice has to be crystal clear. Again here only Reliance and Uninor make it to the top here with over 99%. Again I can vouch that Uninor has one of the best call qualities ever in GSM space. The most pathetic of them remains to be BSNL and Airtel which is very disrespectful for a provider of long experience levels in the country.
• Complaint resolution: though last, this is definitely not the least point to be noted. Whatever be the quality of connection, service matters a lot to customers if they have to remain with the network. Barring Tata CDMA, everyone else seems eager to keep their customers showing 100% adherence to complaints. So there is an even playing ground here.

So who is the winner? From all these statistics? well this could be very very subjective. But before I come to that, let me add my own points worth noting.

• Aircel has one of the worst impressions it creates for customers. I had dropped calls, unreachable networks on day one of buying a connection. This is like serving raw chicken in a star hotel, which is totally unacceptable.
• BSNL has got one of the worst 3G implementations in the country. This is again not surprising at all since they have never known to get their act right the first time they do things. As with broadband, they have also goofed up with 3G. With pathetic networks, and below par customer service, it is only natural they are where they are.
• Airtel has got one of the best EDGE implementations. Any web page that I have tried loading using an Apple iPhone, has given me data almost instantaneously while other providers give data as bursts which means that I must wait for data to be loaded. With Airtel its a great experience using data based services. Especially once they launch 3G.
• Uninor has one of the best call quality among all operators. When you talk with a person either within or outside your network, its as good as having a conversation with the person standing beside you. Such is the call quality and I hope Uninor keeps this strong point and works on their EDGE a bit to reach to the top as a desired provider. Its unfortunate that they did not win the bid for 3G spectrum and improving their EDGE makes it all the more important for Uninor to be competitive in some way.
• Tata Docomo has one of the best customizations possible on their plans. No other operator provides such unique customizations and Tata indeed is the leader of the pack for their uniqueness in their offerings. With the recent 3G license grant things for TATA are only bound to get better if they buck up their customer service to the next level.
• Vodafone is in a niche of their own, but their network problems is going to pull them down from their leadership vantage point sooner than later if they do not work on it soon. There is no use if they have the best customer service happy to help when their basic services aren’t alright.

Of all the providers we have today, there are a couple of players who look extremely promising for the next decade of operations, and these are the natural winners of the game if they play it properly.

Welcome the winners, Uninor and Tata Docomo!

CLICK FOR A LARGER VERSION

Post 1995, koramangala slowly started picking up to being one of the favourite haunts of many an IT company. This is also rougly the timeframe when Electronics city was parallely contemplated and put into place. EC was a natural extended version of Koramangala itself. Those companies who could not afford the would-be-slowly-posh neighbourhood, had to think of EC as their next choice. EC brought about expanding Koramangala southwards towards madiwala. Another popular destination chosen by some famous software companies including Texas instruments, HP were Wind tunnel road, nearby ISRO and old airport, and this expanded Koramangala eastwards to bring out what is currently the Intermediate Ring road. the west and north were already bustling entries and exits to Koramangala. 

The next most important turning point for the locality was the Forum Mall. Businesses, apartments, paying guests, eateries, offices, everything mushroomed around Forum making 7th and 8th blocks most wanted. The 1st and 2nd blocks maintained their charm due to the rather famous Raheja Residency and a few other apartments around the place. Today it serves as an important link to outer ring road, HSR Layout, and madiwala for thousands of people. What were once huge (120×80, 120×120) residences in 3rd and 4th blocks, are now serviced homes, and/or costly restaurants which lend themselves rather well to the decor of the entire locality. With peaceful surroundings, they make the best spots to be in for visitors from both within and outside the country.  5th and 6th blocks were mostly middle class who were typically from the public sector companies and at best these are now influenced by the 80′ road running through 6th block, and the two 60′ roads binding 5th blocks in a deadly business grip !!

The 80′ road itself has proved a lifeline for the esrtwhile lakebeds of National Games village, and ST bed, to become jam packed with apartments offering paying guest options and business conference rooms who make hay even when the sun won’t shine. Of course this kind of development also presents tens of thousands of employment opportunities to a wide variety of people who naturally then become the floating population of the place. This means they also use their vehicle to criss cross the locality which is already congested with some serious traffic. Every single IT company has a bus running through this place during peak hours and this only adds to the chaos. An area which starts off its calm mornings by 6am turns into a traffic nightmare by 8am. Same holds good during the evenings. The residential tag of Koramangala is slowly and steadily reaching its logical end. So much that people are unmindful that them causing noise pollution and vehicular disturbance would harm the peace and tranquility enjoyed by erstwhile residents.

Pubs and shops have only added to the chaos which brings about scores of boys and girls who occupy every park bench everyday bunking their daily routines denying residents a chance to enjoy anything around. Paying guest accomodation only means vehicular disturbance beyond the acceptable night hours. Call centre mania is no less glorified as well here. And with so many people for the 12 hours in a day and their palates to satisfy, have only meant literally hundreds of restaurants mushroom on every street possible – the shanti sagars, the sukh sagars, the amritsars, the delhi’s, the paratas, the andhra messes, the kerala food joints, why only indian, even all the way upto chinese, korean, american and even europians have invaded the place lapping up every piece and parcel of real estate available. There are no less than about 200+ restaurants dotting the locality making it a logistical nightmare. 

Without proper infrastructure plans, without proper connectivity which was faster, safer and more effecient, Koramangala has silently suffered through the changes in times. What I enjoyed in terms of my schooling, my friends’ circle, my games sessions, and the tranquility around during my youth are things which I cannot provide for my children at this stage. The evolving change Koramangala has brought about has forced even a few of the hardcore Koramangalites who have known the localities’ roots to look out for other options. There can be hundreds of good things to enjoy nearby but all that becomes meaningless if one cannot get one nights’ worth of sound sleep at the end of it.

It is at this juncture that I take a deep bow to salute and respect a locality that has meant so much to me and my childhood, a locality that has gained so much respect for globalization and its cosmopolitan nature, a place whose great things will forever be etched in the minds of its original residents. The years spent in the locality Koramangala originally was are something no one in future can understand, and no one in the past can forget. This is the true phenomenon I was part of and will never forget. Goodbye Koramangala. Goodbye forever.

I noticed this article from the times of india, which captured the essence of Koramangala through the mind of Balbir Singh, the owner of Koramangala.com.

Around 17 years ago, Koramangala was nothing short of a pocket of villages. For every small purchase, we had to drive down to Brigade Road. Instances where a Koramangalite would go outdoors after 7 pm were sparse. It was unsafe and autorickshaw drivers always refused to come to Koramangala. This place was dead,” says Balbir Singh, who quit his job in the printing & packaging industry to launch the portal koramangala.com along with his wife Amrit Sethi.

Way back in 1984, if someone went out after 7pm, there was no guarantee of him returning home be it a kid or an adult. The biggest set of marshy land regions included what is now the National Games Village, and ST Bed (behind the Maharaja hotel).  Everything beyond that were just groves and groves of cocount trees which could trap an unassuming individual if he trespassed into an unending maze of no-return. From our home, we could see the Mantons crane factory (today otherwise called Raheja Arcade), and St.John’s hospital. While the first five years of my stay did not see anyone owning a television set in Koramangala, after that stage the first few black and white sets started arriving on the scene. Chitrahaar, Chitramanjari, Vartegalu, Blockbuster movies, and the famous moon mission by Rakesh Sharma – were some of the things that raked in crowds. Hordes of children descended on the only house(s) that had TVs and settled down like we were one family, with one goal – watch TV.

Open spaces, tall grasses, St John’s Hospital, service roads and, yes, cows. Nobody thought this quiet suburb would be transformed so much. It was more like a brick & mortar village with the typical ration shops around it,” recollects Santhosh Kumar, an HR professional, who has been residing in Koramangala since 1984

The Koramangala club membership was a near miss for my father. To keep up the socializing habit, the membership was offered at a mere 500 bucks which those days amounted to a monthly salary of people living there. The founder members had to pitch in about 2000 bucks each with which they would build what is otherwise today called the Koramangala Club with a mind boggling membership amount running into lakhs of rupees.

The entire set of people living in Koramangala 6th Block used to play badminton, shuttle, ring, kho-kho and what not and this included all the adults in each family. Boy, it was such a pleasure to be living here. After my dad, I was the next undisputed badminton champ out here. The next ten years was sheer bliss upto 1995. The locality slowly gained ground in terms of development, and infrastructure to support the growing population was slowly being put in place. Post offices, schools, bus stops, banks, water tanks, electricity board offices, small shops to meet the grocery needs.

Some of the famous names to do business with were Krishna medicals, Vaishnavi stores for stationery (and those new famous pens and pencils), fashion center (for your clothing needs), modern stores and balaji stores (for groceries). The only good hotels years down the line were Sukh sagar, and Utsav Veg. Bethany and Neena schools were the only schools that have withstood the test of time for over 25 years now. So much so was the nostalgia that I can say I could reach my school as the crow flies (diagonally) from my home.

1995 was ushering in the software era, into india, into bangalore, into koramangala in full swing. This was the turning point for the poshness of the locality to start exposing itself. In full glory. for the next ten years. Few of the earliest names to move into Koramangala were Wipro and Infosys.

The phenomenon was now being created.