Tring, Tring. Welcome to the really mobile, mobile world.

This is the sound of inevitability. On 30th December, 2009, bridges will appear across mobile service providers. Bridges, that for a princely toll fee of Rs. 19, allow you to transition from one mobile service provider to another.

And if all happens as planned, this is one of the most disruptive events that would have ever happened to the Indian Telecom sector since the Mobile Boom. The Indian Mobile Market spaces would be free of monopoly from service providers, who hold you to ransom over prices and schemes for the very simple reason that you cannot move away from them without losing your mobile number.

I personally have been a very, very early adopter of Mobile Services. And ever since I picked up a number, I have been with a single co, that has changed its business avatar as Orange, HutchMax, Vodafone and so on. A single mobile number has been printed on hundreds of thousands of visiting cards, websites, contact forms, proposals etc, and has been unleashed across industries, sectors, people, domains where I ply or intended to ply, or intend to ply, my business. In a good number of cases, it has paid off. Calls made to potential customers 3 years ago, have resulted in orders even last week.

I have stuck on to a single service provider, whatever be the cost, worries, joys, encumbrances, headaches, promises not met, commitments over-fulfilled and so on.

I am now happy, that this enforced “stickiness” will be done away with, leaving me with the choice, at an extremely affordable rate of Rs. 19 per change too, of shifting to another provider who offers better pricing, quality of service, higher level of customer responsiveness, and so on.

I am finally a number free, not bound. 30th Sept, shall set me free.

Sanjeev Sarma

ps. As I write this, my numb brain explores various vistas and avenues of changes this could mean to market places and spaces. Hope I’m not too lazy to document them.