<B>By Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

I?m very happy that, since Wednesday, my phone displays Orange instead of Cellplus. I don?t quite know why this should make me happy but I guess I?m nostalgic of the time when I was in England and when I had made the choice to switch to the Orange mobile network just because I had seen an impressive Orange advert on TV that ended with the words, ?The future?s bright. The future?s orange.?

I almost believed it ? the ad was that powerful.

And I must say, I?ve never regretted the choice ? the Orange service was great ? I?m guessing a lot of it had to do with the fact that there was fierce competition ? the customer is then really looked after, his life made easier and he is treated like he is the only person that matters.

I don?t know if Orange is bringing with it its legendary customer service but let?s just say that so far the customer service hotline is not living up to its name. We called 8900 yesterday to try and get some information regarding roaming and the obviously untrained Orange person who picked up was not in any position to help us with our enquiries because she didn?t have the information we required at hand. When we kept insisting, she replied, ?Yes, you can put the phone down now.?

I guess it would be unfair to draw conclusions just now and declare the service crap. So we?ll be fair to Orange and give it some time to settle down and get to grips with things but let it be known that we will not be fooled.

Because there are so many things about this Mauritius Telecom-Orange deal that we don?t know and that we are not supposed to know because of some obscure "confidentiality clause". I don?t know about you but I don?t care much for confidentiality clauses in companies where the State is a majority shareholder. But all questions put by journalists on Wednesday regarding the financial implications of this deal, were met with the same bizarre reaction ? not allowed to tell.

As a general rule, this never bodes well.

I don?t know if Orange is also not allowed to tell what exactly customers of the former Cellplus are getting out of this deal, the details of which we are not privy to.

Save a few smokescreen measures where you save 10 cents a minute to call your ?favourite? Orange number and a discount when you roam the region, I really am at a loss to understand what exactly is changing.

Cellular phones will continue to be sold at the same abusive prices; no package deal will be available when you sign up for a contract with Orange unlike what happens in Europe for instance (I wonder why Orange is so reluctant to extend the same courtesies to its Mauritian customers that it does to its other customers) and there will be no sizeable decrease in Internet prices. So how bright is that future going to be?