At 20 Feb 2008 12:10:10 -0800 SMS wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote:
>
> > Personally, I believe they approached Verizon first to "get it out of
the
> > way." Verizon'shistory of crippling handsets made them very unlikely to
> > play well with the iPhone, and I suspect Apple didn't expect much from
> > Verizon, but gave them a shot and realized quickly further talks were
> > pointless.
>
> Almost certainly the reason they approached Verizon first was because
> they knew two things:
>
> 1. Verizon has the most retail subscribers of any U.S. carrier, and
> continues to add more retail subscribers than AT&T. This meant the
> largest possible market in the U.S. for the iPhone.


Again, by an extremely small margin. All else being equal, you'd take the
larger carrier, but all things are rarely equal. Let's face it- Apple and
Verizon would've been a lousy fit!


> 2. Very few Verizon subscribers would give up the Verizon network in
> order to get an iPhone, while AT&T subscribers have less allegiance.

Again, that's an unwarranted conclusion, conveniently forgetting the small
spike in Verizon churn in the 3rd-quarter last year (the iPhone's big
quarter.) Apparently not ALL Verizon customers swear an allegiance! ;-)

AT&T's churn is a little higher, but that's still the second best churn
number in the industry.

> The churn numbers confirm this.

Again, all else being equal...


> I'm not sure what conclusions you think I'm drawing that are unsupported
by the citations I include.


Everything beyond the hard numbers! Stuff like "Verizon has the lowest
churn" is a fact, for example, while "very few Verizon customers would
leave..." is an opinion. There is a difference, you know.

> > Yes, and the difference in customers between the top two carriers,
either
> > retail or total, is relatively negligible- within 10%.
>
> It's actually over 10%. At the end of 2007, AT&T wireless had 55 million
retail post paid customers, while Verizon had 61 million.

You got me by 500k customers, give or take. (The difference was less when
Apple and A&T did the deal, BTW!).

> > While true, and while I agree Verizon has a stronger network, it's not
by
> > anywhere near the margin you suggest. If Verizon was as superior as you
> > believe, why haven't the 50+ million "retail" AT&T customers jumped ship
> > yet? All contracts run out eventually, so why does ANYONE re-up on
AT&T's
> > "inferior" network.
>
> A few reasons right off the top of my head:
>
> 1. A better selection of handsets
> 2. More worldwide roaming
> 3. Adequate service in the areas where they use their phones


If all of those factors are more important to 63, er, 55 million customers,
than "the network" then why do you think Apple would see Verizon and it's
network as an advantage? The top two carriers are essentially
interchangeable from Apple's standpoint, and equally viable. Why not just
take the better deal?


> > The fact that T-Mo, the carrier with the weakest network, consistently
> > ranks at or near the top of customer satisfaction surveys points out
that
> > even their network is satisfactory.
>
> No, what it proves is that there is more to customer satisfaction than
the actual quality of the network.

Of course- yet if these non-Verizon networks wereaspoor as you think, we
non-VZW users would all be walking around with dead phones!

> > Now if I want to close with an SMS-like conclusion from the above, I
could
> > suggest that the Verizon customer service experience must be pretty
> > lackluster if their superior network doesn't give them a commanding lead
> > over T-Mo and their inferior network in satisfaction surveys like J.D.
> > Powers'!
>
> Actually, what you could conclude it that T-Mobile's customer service is
> outstanding, while Verizon's is lackluster.
But I was mostly kidding- I've never really heard too much griping about
VZW's CS, (at least compared to, say, Sprint's.) You can only draw your
conclusion if you accept the premise Verizon's network is orders of
magnitude better than others, when the reality is that all the national
carriers have comparable networks within a few percentage points of each
other (counted by POPs, rather than geography.)