Five Things Your Cellphone Operator Won’t Tell You

1. THE MORE FRIENDS YOU HAVE, THE BETTER WE LIKE IT

You know those silly jokes or mushy friendship day messages you keep getting on your phone, which you then forward to all your friends and contacts? The ones that wish you a Happy Valentine even though you have just broken up with your boyfriend, or blessings on Gudi Padwa, though you may be Catholic. Well, they are purposefully sent by the cellphone company’s marketing department because they know that you will compulsively forward the message.

The short messaging service (SMS) is a crackerjack way for cellphone companies to leverage their already existing network. So companies will find newer ways to make you finger-happy and send out as many forwards as you can.

2. PLEASE GET YOUR FORTUNE TOLD EVERY DAY

Phone companies make their revenues not as much from calls—that has become a commodity—but from the value-added services such as ringtone downloads, games, Indian Idol-type contests and astrology predictions. One user got an inflated bill and found that her seven-year-old son had repeatedly downloaded songs and games on offer.

Earlier, the phone companies didn’t even bother disclosing the higher rates for these special services, but thanks to the regulators’ intervention, there is now more transparency. So at least you know that you are putting down sixodd rupees for that contest you will probably never win.

3. OUR PROMOTIONAL OFFERS ARE PRETTY BOGUS

Almost every time a new phone operator enters the market, it offers a seemingly fantastic package of free incoming and outgoing calls or SMSs, for all numbers within the network. So Idea to Idea or, say, Reliance to Reliance would be free. Sounds good, except that if you were to sit down and analyse the number of people on your contacts list within that network, you may find that there are hardly any.

The reality is that the late entrants in the market hardly have any traffic, so they can afford to give these deals. As soon as their customer base builds up, they stop these offers. It really only makes sense to take up a new operator’s offer if you are a big company and you are giving all your employees a phone connection, and expect to have high internal consumption. Otherwise, if you want to avail of the free usage, it is better to be with an older company that has been in the market a while.

4. WE KNOW HOW TO HOOK YOU

In the late 1990s, the average person used his or her cellular phone for 150 minutes per month. Today, people speak an average of 500 minutes per month. Phone companies have insidiously created what one mobile phone executive described as “a habit of talking” by offering endless promotions, freebies and by bundling new numbers on to the primary number.

One mobile phone company executive reveals that there are systems in place which analyse your bill to see where you can be hooked into more usage. He says, “If we check the bill and find that the user doesn’t send messages much, we may give the person free SMS for a while just to get him into the habit.” So every time there’s some promotional offer, don’t be under the impression that the company is trying to be nice to you.

5. DO YOU REALLY KNOW HOW THE BILLING WORKS?

There used to be a joke in the good old days that never were. When you ate out at a restaurant, you had to make sure that the cashier hadn’t added up the date on the bill. Then, computerisation took care of all that—or so you think. A senior executive with a mobile phone company reveals, off the record, that there has been a longstanding racket practiced by some phone companies—how they define ‘airtime’.

When does the meter start ticking? Evidently, some companies start the billing cycle from the time the phone starts ringing rather than when the person picks up. Now, that may mean a few seconds here and there as far as a customer is concerned, but multiply that by five million users, and it’s a yummy chunk for the company. When one company complained the others allegedly said: ‘Why are you spoiling the party? Just join in!’

In short, you have no way of monitoring your bill, or knowing how your phone operator is rounding off the minutes. And there is not much you can do about it any way. Consumer representatives at Mumbai Grahak Panchayat say that when they forward billing grievances to cellphone companies, they almost never get a response.