Last week the Wall Street Journal This Morning, a podcast I listen to whenever I can, discussed ways you can get out of your cell phone contract without having to pay the cancellation fee.
Was this actually a piece that WSJ researched, or did it come from a press release one of the cell phone carriers slipped through the fax or email? If it came from one of the cell phone carriers, then it was a real public relations coup.
It also probably was the opening salvo of the real cell phone war.
I thought of this as I read a more recent article in the printed version of the The Wall Street Journal about Ten Problems with Wireless. One of the points made in the article was that cell phones have saturated the market. Everyone over the age of 14, and many younger, has a cell phone. Service providers are now transitioning from recruiting new customers to stealing customers away from the competition.
(Personally, I thought the market reached this point some time ago, but maybe that was just my observation.)
In order to do this the carriers are going to have to improve their offering. We are going to start seeing service improvements – less dropped calls, better reception, simpler billing. Prices will also drop again, too.
I also predict that another tactic is going to rear its ugly head in the market – cell phone carriers will start offering to buy you out of your current contract if you make the transition to their service. The aforementioned piece in The Wall Street Journal This Morning is probably a precursor to that.
We currently have a family package with Verizon (by the way, I am very happy with the service), but I recently wanted to take a phone off the contract. I still had 18 months left on that particular phone. In order to remove that phone from my contract, Verizon was going to charge me $175, even though I have been with them for four years and have no intention of taking the other two phones off the contract. I reminded them of my status as a loyal customer, but the service rep politely told me that was their policy.
Soon enough, though, some carrier is going to offer to buy me out of this contract. For the cell phone providers, these early cancellation fees are a barrier to recruiting customers from the competition. Every carrier is probably trying not to be the first one, but it is inevitable. I am sure the carriers will find some way to pass the extra expense on to the consumer – they will just try not to make it look like that.
Stand by. The real cell phone wars have yet to begin. If you are a smart consumer, you will benefit from the fallout.
You may find the real cell phone wars coming forth as the connections between EMF, cell phones, and cancer are proven out to be true. Do your family, children and readers a favor and help them to understand where they can become educated on the topic. This is a great start:
www.safewirelessinitiative.com
Posted by: Josh | November 06, 2006 at 01:30 PM