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War of Words
Who needs — or could ever use — 3,400 free cell-phone minutes? Wireless providers gamble
that the answer to that question is the key to staying afloat in an increasingly cutthroat marketplace
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Business New Haven
9/4/2001
By: Fiona Phelan
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It's not about the minutes; it's about the network.
If you can't make the phone calls you want with your wireless service provider, then what's the point of having a mobile phone with all the bells and whistles and thousands of free night and weekend minutes?
Seemingly all the major wireless service providers are offering special deals to entice new subscribers and it seems like it's hard to choose between them. But, the providers urge consumers to test-drive the service to be sure it meets their needs.
“We have a policy where you can return the handset within two weeks if it doesn't meet your needs,” says AT&T Wireless spokeswoman Diane Saffioti.
“We want you to be able to use your minutes and service,” notes Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Abra Degbor. “If you can't use the service where you want, then what's the point of having all those minutes?”
Verizon Wireless, AT&T Wireless, Cingular and Sprint PCS allow consumers to try their mobile phone service for a specified time period. If you're going to use the mobile phone predominantly in one area, try it out in that region, say the companies. If you plan to use it at home and at work and those places are miles apart, be sure the service works in both areas. Depending on the provider's network, the signal may be stronger in some areas than in others.
Sprint PCS prides itself on its nationwide all-digital network. With your Sprint phone you can travel across the country and still use the Sprint network. One of the company's current marketing plans offers 350 anytime minutes and 2,150 night and weekend minutes for $39.99 a month. You can shop online at www.sprintpcs.com to learn more about this deal and others. Sprint is the nation's fourth-largest carrier, with more than 12.8 million wireless subscribers nationwide. The company's monthly service plans are offered bare-bones or with an array of add-ons that are often included in the monthly service charge or are available for a nominal additional charge (such as roadside rescue - $2.99 a month).
Like its competitors, Sprint PCS offers a wide variety of phones at different prices. Many are Internet-ready, and a few combine the features of a wireless Internet-ready phone with a PDA (personal digital assistant) - cutting down on office clutter.
“This is a great time to be shopping for wireless phone service,” says Sprint PCS spokesman Adrian Paul. “We have a plan for every budget and every need - from your teenager to your businessperson.”
In addition to its monthly service charge plans, Sprint also offers a pre-pay program known as ASL for as low as two cents per minute, according to the company's Paul. ASL follows the Tracfone concept by which users pre-buy minutes and store them for use on their phones.
The subscriber can “top-up” those minutes every two months to keep the phone number active. After the minutes are consumed, and the user can not use the phone for a period, it can be reactivated at any time - a great feature for a person traveling away from home or for high school and college students, say company officials. At the moment, Sprint is offering a $100 rebate on its most popular pre-pay phone (in fact, any Sprint phone can become a pre-pay phone, according to Paul).
Similarly, Verizon Wireless recently introduced its FreeUp pre-pay program.
“The 18- to 24- [year-old] segment of the market has been largely untapped,” says Verizon spokeswoman Abra Degbor. “Verizon specifically targeted this group with its FreeUp program.
“We want to keep up with our customers and provide them with the services that they need,” she adds.
According to a June survey conducted by the Gartner Group, Verizon Wireless is doing just that. The company received the highest satisfaction rating (87 percent) among wireless business users, compared with 80 percent for AT&T Wireless users and 79 percent for Sprint PCS users. Survey respondents cited quality and breadth coverage as the biggest reason why users are satisfied or dissatisfied. Verizon is the larger wireless communications provider in the country, with more than 28 million customers.
Verizon's marketing outline includes national plans, with a range of minutes from 150 to 3,000 per month; regional plans with a range of minutes from 300 to 3,000; local plans with monthly minutes ranging from a low of 45 to a high of 1,500; and a family share plan that allows a family to share one account and one bill, but more than one phone with the same number.
Similarly, AT&T Wireless offers calling plans for users for travel nationally, regionally and locally.
“We have different plans for different budgets,” explains spokeswoman Diane Saffioti.
AT&T is the newest player in Connecticut's wireless arena. The telecom giant has been providing service here since last July and is still “building out” its Nutmeg State network (thus service may not be available statewide at this time). The company does, however, have a roaming agreement with an unnamed carrier to provide AT&T Wireless customers seamless service across the state, including areas where AT&T's network does not yet reach.
In the war of the minutes, Cingular Wireless has elevated the game to a higher level - unlimited night and weekend minutes. For $39.99 a month, customers can choose two options (in addition to the 400 anytime minutes that are standard with the promotion): unlimited nights and weekends, nationwide long distance or wireless Internet access with 100 interactive messages.
In addition, even the most basic $29.99 per month Cingular calling package (which includes 100 minutes of daytime air time) offers call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding, three-way calling, basic voice mail, a message-waiting indicator and detailed billing.
Without a doubt, minutes are hot - but so are other wireless features. With more than 120 million subscribers nationwide, wireless providers need to offer more than thousands of free minutes to lure customers. In addition, they are peddling a plethora of other services such as roadside rescue, text messaging, voice mail, voice-activated dialing, caller ID, call forwarding, and a variety of distinctive ring tones, to name a few.
While your wireless phone may come equipped with several different ring-tone options, even more are available for your provider's and other independent Web sites. Distinctive ring tones or melodies are among the hot new gimmicks, according to wireless-provider spokespersons.
Phones can be programmed to ring in different ways to indicate calls from different people - a new wrinkle on the caller ID concept. Ring tones generally cost about 99 cents each and are charged to the customer's monthly bill.
Gaming is hot, too. More and more customers are using their wireless phones as a grown-up version of GameBoy to play a variety of individual games alone or against other players.
“The real news for mobile-phone users is that it's only going to get better,” says AT&T's Paul. “People are going to have their socks knocked off with things that are coming down the road.”
So just who is using all these minutes and doing all the gabbing? According to a survey conducted for Cingular, men talk 35 percent more on their wireless phones than do women. Men use their wireless phone an average of 372 minutes each month, compared to an average of 275 minutes a month for women, according to the survey.
However, at home the reverse is true.
Other differences: more than 20 percent of men use more than 600 wireless minutes per month compared with 9.9 percent of women using 600 minutes or more.
Moreover, reveals the Cingular survey, women use their phones predominantly to talk to friends and family. Men, conversely, use their wireless phones more for business.
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