February 25, 2008 | Be the first to comment
This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists, hosted by Taptu, summarizes some of the best mobile stories and blog perspectives of the week.
First off, we appreciate Taptu highlighting our story about SJA Mobile. Other topics include mobile applications, local search, the death of the mobile app, solutions for device fragmentation, Google’s Android, Twitter addiction (in a good way), implementation possibilities for mobile web 2.0, MWC recaps, ideas for Nokia apps synergies, and more.
Posted by: Dan
Categories: Announcements
February 22, 2008 | 1 Comment
Within 24 hours of each other this week Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all announced unlimited nationwide calling plans that start at $99.99. T-Mobile’s plan includes text messaging as well.
The analysts and the journalists and Wall Street all cried ‘Price War‘ and Verizon’s stock price dropped 10% before recovering. We think they were all overreacting, to say the least.
There’s a big difference between the advertised price of the voice plan and the total amount of the bill.
The average total bill in the US is about $60 per line ($53 according to the CTIA, plus taxes). All of the coverage so far can be summarized as “$100 is way more than $60, but it must still affect a whole lot of people, right?” Wrong.
$60 includes the voice plan, text messaging, email, web browsing, ringtones, games, premium text messages, 411, international roaming, activation fees, equipment protection, roadside assistance, state and federal surcharges, late fees, just-for-the-hell-of-it fees, and taxes. Voice costs only $40 per line on average including roaming and overage charges.
So how many people spend $100 or more on voice every month? According to Verizon, one half of one per cent of all their subscribers. Do they contribute a disproportionate amount of revenue? No. If every single one of them switched to the new plan, Verizon’s revenue would drop by one third of one per cent.
If rumors of a $60 unlimited plan from Sprint are correct, all bets are off. But $99.99 is a phony war.
UPDATE 2/28: Sprint comes in at $89.99 for unlimited voice and a bundle of data services for another ten bucks. On the quarterly conference call, CEO Dan Hesse admits that the number of subscribers spending $100 or more per line is in the low to mid single digit percentage range. (Or in English, less than 5%.) Nothing to see here, move along.
Posted by: Jason
Categories: Mobile Market
February 21, 2008 | 3 Comments
zzzPhone is a brave attempt to take the build-to-order model pioneered by Dell for PCs and apply it to the cell phone market. Several blogs have covered them and the New York Times picked up the story today.
This is the kind of innovation that open access makes possible. The market for the zzzPhone today is probably no more than a few tens of thousands of units worldwide, so it wouldn’t make sense for a major carrier to do a deal with them. But zzzPhone doesn’t need permission from a cell phone company to launch; their phones will work on any GSM network, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the US.
But even with open access, there are big challenges ahead for zzzPhone. PCs are not like cell phones and the Dell model may not succeed.
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Posted by: Jason
Categories: Mobile Market, Public Policy, Phones, Featured
February 20, 2008 | 26 Comments
Since we posted about mystery charges from SJA Mobile a few things have happened that confirm our suspicions and also suggest that SJA has taken notice.
We are not the only ones. Comments on our blog and posts on HowardForums reveal that lots of people have been on the wrong end of charges from SJA Mobile, most of them Sprint customers.
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Posted by: Dan
Categories: Mobile Market, Featured, Advice
February 5, 2008 | 79 Comments
My Sprint bill contained an odd new charge this month: SJA Mobile: Alerts - SJA Mobile Alerts - 01/03 $4.99
I had never heard of SJA Mobile, so I dug around on their website. It seems that all they do is offer refunds. But for what service?
It looks like SJA Mobile acquires lists of cell phone numbers, sends blank or meaningless text messages to each number, and then adds $4.99 or $9.99 to the customer’s bill each month until the victim customer figures it out and cancels.
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Posted by: Dan
Categories: Mobile Market, Featured
