Himanshu Singh 19 Report post Posted July 21, 2008 (edited) TOI reports, It's not just in politics that arch rivals suddenly become friends. On Friday, India's telecom sector witnessed an unusual alliance, with Vodafone demonstrating that it is "happy to help" not just its own customers but its competitor Bharti Airtel's as well. When a major fire destroyed some of Airtel's crucial telecom switches in Mumbai, reportedly cutting off services to its subscribers for over 12 hours, the company chose to knock at Vodafone's door for assistance to migrate its customers onto Vodafone's network. Bharti Airtel is India's largest GSM telecom services firm with 69.4 million subscribers followed by Vodafone in second place with 49.2 million. In Mumbai, however, Vodafone has 3.7 million subscribers followed by Airtel with 2.5 million. However, despite fierce competition in one of the most lucrative telecom markets in the country, Vodafone was more than amply sympathetic towards its rival. From 11 pm onwards, Airtel's network started to slowly sputter back to life with customers receiving this message: "Welcome to the Vodafone Mumbai Network. Happy to help." Vodafone was perhaps the logical choice as it is the only player in Mumbai with some excess capacity unlike the other GSM players BPL and MTNL. Besides, Vodafone made sure not to compromise its network quality for its own subscribers, only absorbing as much of Airtel's traffic as its own network was able to load. "At night and on weekends, office traffic dips, so we were able to take on the additional load," a Vodafone official confirmed. Airtel on its part claims that the fire took a toll on just 20% to 25% of its network. However, the impact was reportedly severe as it was not restricted to a series of numbers or a particular geography. Airtel also said on Friday that it was a temporary disruption only in some areas of South Mumbai and certain suburbs which would be restored to normalcy soon. However, it is fairly obvious that had it been so simple, it would not have been forced to turn to its competitor for help, implying that the disruption of services was indeed severe and widespread. Edited July 22, 2008 by sachinrocks Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Honest 836 Report post Posted July 21, 2008 Hmmm, its really shocking to see Airtel and Vodafone alltogether. They indeed are real time competitors. Anyways, it seems that Vodafone now a days going by its slogan "Happy to Help". But, first of all, Vodafone should be helpful to its subscribers instead of being helpful to its rivals. Regards. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ashoksoft 83 Report post Posted July 21, 2008 As part of the rules agreed in consortium of intellectual rights and copyrights. Information that has been published in a publicly accessible format like newspaper, if duplicated - you need to acknowledge the original source. This is mandatory - since otherwise it is considered as plagiarism (of course when you have not taken written approval for replication). To keep the forum healthy and free to opine, I would request all members to post the source of information if it is replicated from a "Recognized publisher" like a newspaper / epaper / blog. FYA : I guess this was from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Busines...how/3254543.cms No hard feelings mate cheers karki Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Honest 836 Report post Posted July 21, 2008 ^^^ Yes my dear Ashok you have pointed out the correct matter. The source should be mentioned in the post / thread, if the same has been copied / duplicated from other source. Hope all members read this and keep the forum neat by providing the source of information in their threads / posts. Take my example, earlier when I post any information on the forum, I too, does not provides the source of the information. But after sometime I realised that it is wrong. Then I started giving the source of the information in all my threads / posts which are copied from other sources. If the members doesn't want to give the link of the source, then they can just type like this in the end of the post : Courtesy : TOI (Or whichever the source be). Regards. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Himanshu Singh 19 Report post Posted July 22, 2008 Point well taken and appropriate modification done. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ashoksoft 83 Report post Posted July 22, 2008 Thanks a ton sachin Did not mean it to sound personal ... it was something that I was thinking of posting for quite sometime ... delibrated for sometime to either post in a existing topic - or send out a mail to all members ... and chose the former cheers karki Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KumaarShah 143 Report post Posted July 22, 2008 @karki, Good move as I see many seniors on this Forum also not following this rule. It would be better maybe if you could send out a mail to all those who have completed maybe 200 or more posts on the rules and etiquettes on this forum. All these rules are constantly changing and hence this may be followed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
agrawaltrilok 0 Report post Posted July 22, 2008 I feel it is a classic example of using an opportunity to build a strong brand. A brand that cares and is always "HAPPY TO HELP". Vodafone though this noble gesture showed that they really practice when it comes to "HAPPY TO HELP". My second bit on this is that Vodafone must have charged a bounty for this from Airtel as they knew there is no one else with spare network capacity in Mumbai. 3rd point is if Vodafone denies help to Airtel, Vodafone is not going to gain anything. Yes, airtel will loose something but just because of one accident users are not going to switch from Airtel to Vodafone. TOI reports,It's not just in politics that arch rivals suddenly become friends. On Friday, India's telecom sector witnessed an unusual alliance, with Vodafone demonstrating that it is "happy to help" not just its own customers but its competitor Bharti Airtel's as well. When a major fire destroyed some of Airtel's crucial telecom switches in Mumbai, reportedly cutting off services to its subscribers for over 12 hours, the company chose to knock at Vodafone's door for assistance to migrate its customers onto Vodafone's network. Bharti Airtel is India's largest GSM telecom services firm with 69.4 million subscribers followed by Vodafone in second place with 49.2 million. In Mumbai, however, Vodafone has 3.7 million subscribers followed by Airtel with 2.5 million. However, despite fierce competition in one of the most lucrative telecom markets in the country, Vodafone was more than amply sympathetic towards its rival. From 11 pm onwards, Airtel's network started to slowly sputter back to life with customers receiving this message: "Welcome to the Vodafone Mumbai Network. Happy to help." Vodafone was perhaps the logical choice as it is the only player in Mumbai with some excess capacity unlike the other GSM players BPL and MTNL. Besides, Vodafone made sure not to compromise its network quality for its own subscribers, only absorbing as much of Airtel's traffic as its own network was able to load. "At night and on weekends, office traffic dips, so we were able to take on the additional load," a Vodafone official confirmed. Airtel on its part claims that the fire took a toll on just 20% to 25% of its network. However, the impact was reportedly severe as it was not restricted to a series of numbers or a particular geography. Airtel also said on Friday that it was a temporary disruption only in some areas of South Mumbai and certain suburbs which would be restored to normalcy soon. However, it is fairly obvious that had it been so simple, it would not have been forced to turn to its competitor for help, implying that the disruption of services was indeed severe and widespread. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Honest 836 Report post Posted July 22, 2008 3rd point is if Vodafone denies help to Airtel, Vodafone is not going to gain anything. Yes, airtel will loose something but just because of one accident users are not going to switch from Airtel to Vodafone ^^^ Very true my dear Trilok. After all they have to compete alltogether with forthcoming CDMA operators. Regards. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raccoon 53 Report post Posted July 22, 2008 3rd point is if Vodafone denies help to Airtel, Vodafone is not going to gain anything. Yes, airtel will loose something but just because of one accident users are not going to switch from Airtel to Vodafone. One accident??? I think not... after suffering Airtel's network, I'm inclined to think Airtel itself is one big accident... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
