Telecommies

Have It Your Way - Verizon is the Burger King of the Cell Phone Market

Verizon took another bold step towards consumer choice yesterday, by embracing linux on cell phones. The Tribune reports:

Verizon became the first U.S. wireless carrier to join what’s called the LiMo Foundation, a group of companies pushing to create an open, Linux-based operating system for wireless products. The now 40-member group also includes phonemakers Motorola, Samsung and LG…

Over the coming year Verizon previously announced plans to remove restrictions on the types of cell phones compatible with their wireless service. Moving this direction, allowing consumers to alter their phones’ operating system, is a natural extension of their new open wireless service business model.

Yesterday Verizon’s wireless divison announced 9.8% increase in first quarter earnings, attributed to a growing customer base. In particular, during a conference call with investors, the company mentioned strong sales with it’s $99 per month/unlimited calling. The share of new customers opting for the unlimited calling blossomed from 4 up to 13 percent.

Tired of all those negative ads? No, I’m not talking about the latest primary battle between Hillary and Obama.

The big ISPs appear to be in the midst of a marketing war. It’s a sign of vibrant competition between service providers… better service should follow.

Here’s a brief excerpt from Peter Suderman’s outstanding article, Public Know Nothings, featured on The American Spectator.

NARAL, a hard-line pro-abortion group, had a text message blast rejected by wireless provider Verizon on the grounds that Verizon reserves the right to refuse to send controversial messages — of any political persuasion — over its system…

Surely, I thought, this would lead to calls for regulatory action, and surely confusion would ensue. Never mind that after a swift and loud public outcry, Verizon reversed its decision the very next day…

And sure enough, with the help of some liberal advocacy groups, the FCC has begun to mull the business of texting and rejecting. Several of these groups, led by the left-leaning tech advocacy organization Public Knowledge, recently submitted a petition demanding that the FCC issue a ruling that blockages are illegal….

BUT WHAT THEY’RE calling for is hardly safe text. Instead, it’s governmental bullying. Their rallying cry is that Verizon’s action amounted to “censorship.”

But was it? Most people would not think it censorship for a party host to ask an unruly, argumentative guest to settle down, nor for their local coffee shop to place rules on what bulletins might or might not be posted on its cork board. These are private actors that have a right and, indeed, often an obligation to watch over what is said and done on their property.

The same goes for Verizon. Just because its network exists largely in the wireless ether doesn’t make it any less property. Verizon, like any property owner, needs to reserve the right to manage the content that flows over its network.

[read Suderman’s full article here]

Clash of the cable titans: Verizon slowly growing on Comcast’s turf from The Eagle-Times

Verizon’s FiOS launch (offering super high speed internet and TV service) in South Florida seems to be stumbling over basic customer service issues. A recent customer complaint is the Herald Tribune:

“I have continually been stalled, lied to, deceived and to date nobody at Verizon seems to have a clue what is going on,” Weisenbacher’s complaint reads. “It seems to me that Verizon is deliberately playing games with the general public assuming people will get so frustrated that they will simply drop the issue.” (read full)

Weisenbacher is one of 543 customers filing complaints with the Florida attorney general.

Verizon’s negligence is Comcast’s opportunity

Meanwhile, Comcast offers disgruntled customers a good alternative:

Competitor Comcast has begun offering to pay the termination fees for Verizon customers wanting to return to the Comcast.

“If you have become a Verizon customer and are unhappy, we have some win-back offers that will allow you to recoup your termination fee and come back to us,” said Mark Lipford, vice president and general manager for Comcast West Florida. “It’s interesting for every video customer we lose, we get 37 percent back within 30 days, either because they’re having technical problems, customer service problems or they can’t get SNN 6.”

This is the free market at work.

Verizon just lowered the price for unlimited mobile internet on a few cell phones to $29.99 a month. Now the plan is limited to the Verizon SMT5800, Verizon Wireless XV6800, and Motorola’s Q9m (shown in image). This plan will expand to more smart phone models in the future.

Going through this mornings news clips, I came across an entertaining article on Verizon from the “SocialistWorker.org.”

First, the article complains about the switch from old copper telephone lines (landlines) to modern fiber optic cable:

This has allowed Verizon to sell off their copper plant in New England, leaving thousands of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) members facing the possibility of the termination of collective bargaining when their contract runs out.

What’s more, the fiber system is projected to need only a fraction of the maintenance of the existing copper wiring.

Better performance and lower labor costs… that sounds horrible.

Other union threats include adjusting the health care plan, which Verizon pays 100 percent of, freezing pension plans, and a new “acclerated discipline plan” against no-show workers “which led to firings in the first year it was in place.”

Meanwhile, Verizon’s unionized work force “has plummeted to 30 percent[.]” All-the-while Verizon Business Workers (the non-unionized ones) don’t even perceive themselves as “scabs.” Unions are desperately turning recruiting over to their legal department. “Union lawyers are preparing for hearings this summer to decide if the 30,000 former MCI employees should automatically be part of the bargaining unit by virtue of the type of work that they do, as they fit in existing job categories and do identical work.” Union assimilation by job description… it’s an interesting concept.

Without any substantiation, the article accuses Verizon public relations of a “throw-shit-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks-approach.”

Finally, aside from the combat analogies, the Socialist Worker finds Verizon guilty of refusing to honor the “card check” scheme(I had to google this one…), monitoring employees out on disability, and firing those that abuse the system.

These complaints can only mean one thing, Verizon is trying to run a business.

These cell phone signal boosters, “femtocells,” designed for home use are one more reason to ditch your landline. The Associate Press explains:

Not only do femtocells improve coverage indoors, where the carrier has a hard time reaching, they reduce traffic on regular, outdoor cellular towers. Perhaps best of all, the carrier doesn’t have to pay to carry the traffic from the femtocell to its network, because the device plugs into a home broadband connection. The so-called “backhaul” traffic, which carries calls from a cellular tower to the wired network, is a major part of the cost of operating a wireless network.

While these gadgets threaten already suffering landline business of Verizon and AT&T, market forces may force them to embrace it anyway. Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin comments, “‘They’re afraid that by deploying these femtocells, at least where they have a landline footprint, they might be putting their landline business at risk’… But that business is at risk anyway – a lack of femtocells may make cellular subscribers keep their landlines for another year or so, but not for long[.]”

Right now Sprint has a competitive lead, already offering them for $49.99 plus $15 a month for unlimited home calling.

Source: Wireless industry works to boost cell phone coverage in the home, Associate Press (4/3/08)

While neglecting landline maintenance isn’t ideal, I can understand why. DSL is slow, and landlines are secondary to cell phones; and an expensive alternative at that.

Business wise, those old copper wires are going nowhere…