I spent four years working for Vodafone in sales and account management and it saddens me no end to see what state their services are at. I started with them not long after BellSouth exited the country and at the time there were less than 150,000 subscribers on the network. We were clearly the upstart of the industry taking on the established heavyweight.

Some of the services that were unique to us at the time were clear differentiators (txt being the main example) but the real point of difference was the brand. Vodafone back then was cool. It was innovative, smart and looked after its customers. I was working in retail when a "drop and swap" promo was first run. Customers could bring in any working telecom mobile and swap to a VF prepay at no cost which included $100 of credit.

Pretty cool promo of its own accord but the real smart thing was the timing - Boxing Day thru to New Years. We were swapping phones that had literally come straight out from under the Christmas tree, still boxed and shrink wrapped.

Demand was insane, you could hardly call it selling, it was more just straight distribution. The local telecom guys looked liked someone had stolen their dates on prom night. That sort of innovation helped define us as a company and customers loved us for it.

I suppose its almost inevitable that a company changes as it grows. But to read they had to suspend some of their core billing services so they could upgrade their systems to cope had me shaking my head in disbelief. How did they get to that stage in the first place? How did a company that used to be so smart, so innovative, so in-tune with its customers, suddenly forget about them?

Most of the commentary on here is less than complimentary of the company and at first, I was tempted to jump in here and try to defend my old stomping ground. But in the end, I've realised there's not really much left to defend is there? The sad truth is that this once clever, funky organisation has gone the way of most succesful but lumbering corporates and forgotten the core values that got it there in the first place.