What is wrong with you people? Seriously, it's like you all are spoilt little brats who need a spanking! I was told to calm myself because I'm now suffering from high BP thanks to this monthly column, but how can I be calm when you people behave so badly?
The poor TSPs (telecom service providers, not teaspoons, this is digit, not some cookbook …) are struggling to make profits for their shareholders, and yet all you people think about is yourself? Shameful!
For years now Jio disrupted the market and dropped prices for data and calling, and we all loved it for that. Why wouldn't we? Don't we love it when yet another Ambani business thrives? So, when they raised their tariffs for outgoing calls to other networks by 15 per cent recently, why was that such a big deal? Just pay more. And if you can't afford it, just earn more. It's not like this is hard to figure out!
Now, it looks like all the TSPs have got together and decided to raise rates and make more money from the Indian consumers. Jio has also joined Airtel and Vodafone Idea by raising the price by another 15 per cent, which gives the other TSPs the opportunity to increase rates by 30 per cent total without changing market dynamics at all. Essentially, your total mobile bill might increase by a third, and it doesn't matter what TSP you use. Fun, isn't it?
Look, I know you don't like the idea of increased prices. No one does, but you have to put things in perspective. Members of the various TSP boards have been crying into their luxurious pillows at night, because although they make about Rs 75 ARPU (average revenue per user), they want to make Rs 100. They have shareholders, and shareholders need to eat better caviar with the silver spoons they were born with. Think about it… silver spoons! How degrading for them to have to admit to that!
All this time the rates have been low because they were trying to spread their user base to get as many people on to the new plans as possible. See, companies have these things called revenue targets, and they need to hit them so that shareholders increase their wealth. One way to make money is to get new users signed up and increase your coverage. Since the investment in such a business is almost all upfront (all that infrastructure costs a bomb!), Growing new users makes you more money. Then, when new signups taper off, of course, you have to charge the existing users more, in order to keep the same levels of growth.
Sure, you have kids to feed and don't earn enough to give them all phone and data access, despite it being almost a mandatory condition of success in any field these days. If you're poor, you probably have more than two kids, so pick your favorite, give him or her a phone, and let the others share it when he or she is home.
Think of the children! No, not your children, think of stockholders' children. They all want to go to Harvard, or MIT, or Stanford, or some ivy league college in some nice place abroad. How are they supposed to do that unless hundreds of millions of us pay more for the same service that we've been getting?
Are you on one of the most common plans in India? The `199 plan? A 30% increase might mean you will be paying `60 more, and getting… err… higher bills, if everyone raises interconnect tariffs as Jio did.
What about our rather large share of the next billion? You know, the ones who haven't connected already, but really should be? Sure, they will give you some sob story of not being able to feed their kids, and committing suicide because of crop failures… can you really compare that to the pain of a shareholder's kid not getting that Aston Martin for his 16th birthday that he's been dreaming of ever since he turned 15? Why would you want to crush that little boy's dreams with silly stories about malnourished Indian kids in some village that barely gets electricity? Focus on the important things, dear reader. Focus on how we need all these big companies to make more money so that they can hire 9872354875 more officers to be yes men to the big bosses.
Look, it's simple really. TSPs are concerned about the health of the Indian public, and we all know that Indians have problems with heart disease and diabetes. With you having to tighten your belt and eat less, or else exercise more as you get a second job, in order to keep your mobile and data services active and to pay for the bills of everyone in your family… you're definitely going to lose some weight. Look on the bright side instead of complaining about the poor (not really!) TSPs.
Satire [sat-ahyuh r] (noun) – The use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
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