At 06 Sep 2010 15:02:57 -0700 SMS wrote:
> On 9/6/2010 2:50 PM, Seth wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Well, how many people would buy a car without a test drive? And lets
> > face it, getting out of a car you don't like is probably easier than
> > getting out of a phone contract...
>
> A lot of people only initially check if their phone as coverage at
> home, work, their friend's house, etc. To check all the places you
> might be likely to go on vacation, or drive through on the way to
> someplace else, is not an exercise most people bother with.

Nor should they, necessarily. If a lower price carrier works the places
on goes 98% of the time, should they spend an extra (insert dollar figure
here) every month forever, to insure they have coverage that one week
they drive to the Black Hills or Mesa Verde the year after next? It'd be
cheaper just, as someone suggested, to buy a preopaid phone that covers
that area before the trip, and let it expire/recycle/throw it away
aferwards.

Offering coverage you might never need "just in case" is part of
Verizon's marketing plan, just as charging $0.25/text or $0.45/overage
minute to buy larger buckets you'll never use "just in case" is part of
most carriers' MO.


> How many Virgin Mobile customers do you think realize how severely
> limited their coverage is going to be compared to Sprint postpaid
> coverage?

Um, anyone who looks at a VM map? "Most" consumers don't know what an
MVNO is, and probably don't understand/realize the Sprint/Virgin
relationship. (I realize Sprint owns Virgin Mobile USA now, but they
never rebranded it "Sprint" so most probably don't realize the
relationship.)

> How many T-Mobile customers realize that they can't roam onto
> AT&T in areas where T-Mobile has no network?

Why would customers assume they could roam on AT&T? T-Mo doesn't
advertise such a capability. Their maps only show T-Mo and roaming
coverage. The names of roaming partners are never reveled, except on the
phone itself when roaming.

> After all the advertising
> the top carriers used to do with "no roaming charges" it's become
> ingrained that roaming is a given. Instead, "no roaming charges" has
> morphed into "no roaming charges because we won't let you roam."

"Morphed?" That's the way it's always been, ever since the original "no
roaming charges" plan: ATTWS' One Rate back in the late 90s that offered
no roaming charges, by limiting roaming to a limited number of carriers
with pre-negotiated low rates, and no roaming at all anywhere else. The
few models ATTWS offered for OneRate were the first phones I'm aware of
to use a PRL (called IRDB, or "Intelligent Roamer Database," on TDMA
phones.)


> In short, actually checking coverage is something that is rather unique
these days.

Perhaps, but that's more a factor of all national carriers achieving a
sort of coverage "critical mass" years ago.