My younger brother bid farewell yesterday to the GrameenPhone SIM which he inherited from me 4 years ago. He was not worried at all for opting for Warid. He was neither worried about informing all his buddies and acquaintances of his change of mobile number. He argued that Warid is offering the 'best deal' in the market, 20 FnFs....can you believe it? And amazingly low prices...on top of it all, amazing network quality...even in areas where recently other operators had been compelled to shut down their towers due to orders from 'higher authorities'. So he seems pretty happy to be Warided....Waried...Warid....but he is not Worried. Good for him. Warid is backed by petro-dollars, they can afford to play the penetration pricing card, and they have supposedly wooed 70 lakh users already, don't know if its possible or true, who cares.
I wonder, why don't I bother to switch to Warid too? I realize that its not that I am a blind fan of GrameenPhan....I mean GrameenPhone...which would make me religious about their services and I would consider switching to other operators as betrayal to my beloved 'neel pankha'. I don't even bother to go through the flashy advertisements by any operator as a matter of fact. Why is this so? The reason is plain and simple. I am suffering from the inertia to take the cumbersome pain to inform ALL my friends, foes, families, colleagues, strangers that 'Hi, from now on, my number is not 0171....anymore...its 016....please update your address book'. Also I have formed some sort of attachment to the number that I own. These are the prime two reasons I don't want to quit GP's mobile services. I believe that I have become professionally and personally too networked with other people to request them to bother about my number change. My brother could take the pain, as he has less acquaintances, he bothers about money, I bother about being bothered and bothering people I know.
In the UK, you can't distinguish if a number starting with 079...o78..etc. belongs to which operator. The operators there have been pushed to that extent by the demanding customers that they can keep their existing number and still switch operators. T-Mobile, Virgin, 3, O2, you cannot know which is which, the number is yours and you know that for sure. If I was given that opportunity here in Bangladesh, I would have loved to experiment more with what Warid has to offer, what Aktel says, and what does BanglaLink promise. But as a mobile user, my hands are tied and the terms are dictated by the operators, so I am locked in to the number and to the operator too. Ask me if I am happy with my current operator? Do I have a choice?
I wonder, why don't I bother to switch to Warid too? I realize that its not that I am a blind fan of GrameenPhan....I mean GrameenPhone...which would make me religious about their services and I would consider switching to other operators as betrayal to my beloved 'neel pankha'. I don't even bother to go through the flashy advertisements by any operator as a matter of fact. Why is this so? The reason is plain and simple. I am suffering from the inertia to take the cumbersome pain to inform ALL my friends, foes, families, colleagues, strangers that 'Hi, from now on, my number is not 0171....anymore...its 016....please update your address book'. Also I have formed some sort of attachment to the number that I own. These are the prime two reasons I don't want to quit GP's mobile services. I believe that I have become professionally and personally too networked with other people to request them to bother about my number change. My brother could take the pain, as he has less acquaintances, he bothers about money, I bother about being bothered and bothering people I know.
In the UK, you can't distinguish if a number starting with 079...o78..etc. belongs to which operator. The operators there have been pushed to that extent by the demanding customers that they can keep their existing number and still switch operators. T-Mobile, Virgin, 3, O2, you cannot know which is which, the number is yours and you know that for sure. If I was given that opportunity here in Bangladesh, I would have loved to experiment more with what Warid has to offer, what Aktel says, and what does BanglaLink promise. But as a mobile user, my hands are tied and the terms are dictated by the operators, so I am locked in to the number and to the operator too. Ask me if I am happy with my current operator? Do I have a choice?
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