Not a premium customer?

Users who pay hefty bills get preferential treatment on their network. There are a few call drops; waiting time on phone for a customer representative is lower than others, the bandwidth of the premium customer is better.

Industry experts note that the discrimination is due to data mining and business intelligence, which all telecom companies apply.

The technology of data mining is quite old claimed the business head of SAS Institute. SAS is into selling business intelligence software in India for more than a decade. Neha Shah, chief executive, marketing, SAS Institute, said, “Companies assign each customer with a score depending on various factors and each telecom company has different milestones to judge a premium customer. Mobile operators can selectively channel network capacity to each user as it chooses. Furthermore, mobile operators gain insight about real-time customer usage and offer services depending on their value to the network.”

Jeetendra G, head, regulatory and nodal services, Aircel, accepts that they have premium customers but denies giving better services to them in terms of call drops and network. “How can we decentralise our network? We can give better plans and free services but can’t discriminate services on the network.”

Madhusudhan, who left his job at a telecom company, said it was very much possible for companies to offer better services to premium customers. As a banker he gave the example of a credit card. “Imagine if all banks offer the same credit cards with the same credit limit and the same set of discounts and services and the same service level as well. I mean no silver, gold or platinum cards- just a plain credit card. Imagine as a customer who pays them on time and has a credit capacity of a few lakhs a month. You would surely get very frustrated by this plain card approach right? Isn’t this exactly the way the telecom services work?” he questioned.

After 500 million mobile subscribers, the only way for upcoming mobile operators to grow is through customer segmentation and appropriate targeting and branding for the same. A premium customer would shift the operator for priority services and enhanced data and voice offerings and that is revenue for any company.

Nokia Solutions and Nokia Networks who manage the network for Bharti Airtel and several networks for many Indian telecom companies said that with the kind of solutions they have, operators can selectively channel network capacity to each customer, if they wish to.