How many users actually benefit from $99 unlimited?

George wrote:

> I bet many people don't realize how Mickey Mouse some carriers are.
> Tmobile doesn't believe in generators and at least in my area the old
> AT&T TDMA/analog sites had generators but now the GSM stuff just has
> battery.

Verizon claims to have generators at every site where generators are
permitted (80%). AT&T claims to have generators at enough sites to
provide complete geographic coverage, but at reduced capacity. This may
be why Verizon tends to do better in blackouts and other disasters where
power is interrupted.

I couldn't find any information on Sprint and T-Mobile's back-up power
infrastructure, other than Sprint's press release of installing
generators at some sites in Florida and Texas. Just looking at some of
the strange places that Sprint and T-Mobile have had to install sites in
order to get complete coverage, where generators aren't allowed, there
is just no way they could equal the AT&T and Verizon coverage in a
prolonged blackout.

---

› See More: How many users actually benefit from $99 unlimited?

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Yes, I have a feeling that between off-peak and MTM, very few
>> subscribers will benefit from a move up to $100 unlimited, while nearly
>> _all_ of the heavy users (not using smart phones) will move down to $100
>> unlimited.
>
> I can see the carriers dramatically changing the non-unlimited plans,
> making them very expensive relative to the unlimited plans. They could
> also reduce/eliminate off-peak and MTM. The idea would be to move
> people off their $70/mo plans and up to the $100/mo plan (plus
> "regulatory fee recovery" charges, natch).
>
> On the flip side, it moves many over to the prepaid side of the house in
> one way or another--which is no doubt what the big carriers want.
>
> It'll just turn into an even clearer definition between prepaid and
> contract, that's all.

Yeah, so far the carriers seem to have been willing to continue the
contract terms of the original contract on a continuing basis, even
though they really aren't required to do so. I'm keeping my
grandfathered plan simply because if I drop it I can never get by 8:01
p.m. off-peak back, nor can I get back off-network roaming, nor can I
get my sub-$30 monthly cost back.

At some point the carriers may tire of continuing to provide service to
those of us with those $30 ARPUs. They can also decide to cut off the
low-priced MVNOs to eliminate that escape route for those that don't
want to spend a lot.

M.L. wrote:
>> Also, in natural disasters, often the wireless networks are overloaded
>> or go down, but landlines still work.
>
>
> Actually, just the opposite is true. Granted, as usual you showed an
> exception to the rule in order to pass it along as the rule. However,
> during most natural disasters it's the landlines that go down first.

Don't cell phones eventually connect via landlines? It seems to me that
it's cell phone to tower by air, tower to central office by wire,
Central office to central office by wire, central office to tower by
wire and tower to cell by air. For wire, you may substitute fiber
optics, if the local phone company is REALLY up-to-date.

Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> M.L. wrote:
>>> Also, in natural disasters, often the wireless networks are overloaded
>>> or go down, but landlines still work.
>>
>>
>> Actually, just the opposite is true. Granted, as usual you showed an
>> exception to the rule in order to pass it along as the rule. However,
>> during most natural disasters it's the landlines that go down first.
>
> Don't cell phones eventually connect via landlines? It seems to me that
> it's cell phone to tower by air, tower to central office by wire,
> Central office to central office by wire, central office to tower by
> wire and tower to cell by air. For wire, you may substitute fiber
> optics, if the local phone company is REALLY up-to-date.

Yes, this is why landlines are usually more reliable in the event of a
natural disaster (unless of course the wire to your house is knocked down).

At 22 Feb 2008 06:36:09 -0800 SMS wrote:

> Yes, I have a feeling that between off-peak and MTM, very few
> subscribers will benefit from a move up to $100 unlimited, while nearly
> _all_ of the heavy users (not using smart phones) will move down to
> $100 unlimited.

But, to be fair, Mrs. Verizon didn't raise any stupid children. While we
all probably know a guy who knows a guy who uses a jillion minutes and
spends $654/month, the reality is those customers are very rare, and
lowering their rate to $99 won't noticably affect ARPU, even if they don't
con folks like you or I into upgraging to the unlimited plan.

I agree with George, however, that the bigger fear will be further plan
consolidation. In the last couple of years w 've seen the virtual
elimination of the $30 and $35 price point, so $40 is now "entry level" for
wireless. How soon before they have only have 2 plans? Say, $50 for 1000
minutes, and $100 for unlimited. It's a slow but standard pattern in
wireless- make a mid-tier plan a "good value," then use it's heavy adoption
as the excuse to drop the low end plan because "no one was taking it
anyway."


> The carriers also better hope that the heavy users don't find out
> about the ways to get unlimited use at much lower cost.

They won't care- they'll just find ways to plug the holes if they become a
problem.

> PagePlus offers unlimited for about $75 per month, and that $75 isn't
> burdened with extra fees and taxes like the $100 unlimited plans are.

It's also not burdened with being easy to find, buy or refill! ;-)

I can see the Fortune 500 company meeting right now... "Johnson, be sure
to hand out the PagePlus refill cards to the Senior VPs- we don't want
their service suspended during the annual meeting in Houston next week!!!
And check eBay again- that 'new' RAZR you obtained for the CFO was pink and
covered with 'Hello Kitty' stickers and he's feeling a little silly having
to talk on it in front of the board!"

> With Sprint and Voicestick, unlimited is $52 plus taxes and fees paid
> to Sprint, and Voicestick offers a lot of other advantages as well.


Too much hassle for most people, and doubles the chance of a service
problem whenever two companies are involved. Voicestick is a fine outfit
for a two-bit VoIP, but when's the last time your cellphone company e-
mailed you to warn you of a five-hour complete system outage so they can
install a new server? I got one from Voicestick in December, with the
outage scheduled in the early morning one week before Christmas!
I don't mind messing with VoIP to avoid a real screwing, like international
roaming or LD, but it's too flakey or too much work, IMO, to mess around
with to save a few bucks on my cellular bill.

SMS wrote:
> George wrote:
>
>> I bet many people don't realize how Mickey Mouse some carriers are.
>> Tmobile doesn't believe in generators and at least in my area the old
>> AT&T TDMA/analog sites had generators but now the GSM stuff just has
>> battery.
>
> Verizon claims to have generators at every site where generators are
> permitted (80%). AT&T claims to have generators at enough sites to
> provide complete geographic coverage, but at reduced capacity. This may
> be why Verizon tends to do better in blackouts and other disasters where
> power is interrupted.
>
> I couldn't find any information on Sprint and T-Mobile's back-up power
> infrastructure, other than Sprint's press release of installing
> generators at some sites in Florida and Texas. Just looking at some of
> the strange places that Sprint and T-Mobile have had to install sites in
> order to get complete coverage, where generators aren't allowed, there
> is just no way they could equal the AT&T and Verizon coverage in a
> prolonged blackout.

Sprint and tmobile have connectors on their equipment so a portable
generator can be connected. They do this even when generators are
allowed. There is a colo site behind a place that I frequently visit.
VZW, Sprint, AT&T, Nextel and tmobile are on it. The only generator
there is for the VZW equipment. According to the Sprint guy I bumped
into one time they have 4 trailer mounted generators to cover their
local 30,000 square mile market and they are located over an hour's
drive from here.

Todd Allcock wrote:

> I can see the Fortune 500 company meeting right now... "Johnson, be sure
> to hand out the PagePlus refill cards to the Senior VPs- we don't want
> their service suspended during the annual meeting in Houston next week!!!
> And check eBay again- that 'new' RAZR you obtained for the CFO was pink and
> covered with 'Hello Kitty' stickers and he's feeling a little silly having
> to talk on it in front of the board!"

LOL, well in a large corporation they have a telecommunications
department that would handle billing and equpment issues, and presumably
they'd be able to ensure that all the phones were operational. There are
no physical refill cards to hand out, and when on the unlimited plan
there is no worry about someone running out of minutes.

One thing that was interesting that I saw on UglyEric.com was "WARNING:
Verizon Inpulse Motorola W385 usually will not work. All other Inpulse
phones work fine."

If this is true, then all those phones sold at Walgreen's, Wal-Mart,
etc., will work fine.

> Too much hassle for most people, and doubles the chance of a service
> problem whenever two companies are involved. Voicestick is a fine outfit
> for a two-bit VoIP, but when's the last time your cellphone company e-
> mailed you to warn you of a five-hour complete system outage so they can
> install a new server? I got one from Voicestick in December, with the
> outage scheduled in the early morning one week before Christmas!
> I don't mind messing with VoIP to avoid a real screwing, like international
> roaming or LD, but it's too flakey or too much work, IMO, to mess around
> with to save a few bucks on my cellular bill.

Perhaps, though I've experienced AT&T outages as well, especially with
their conference call services.

These new unlimited plans seem to be targeted at casual users, not
corporate users, because they exclude smartphones, iPhones,
Blackberry's, etc.

At 22 Feb 2008 11:24:41 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> I can see the carriers dramatically changing the non-unlimited plans,
> making them very expensive relative to the unlimited plans. They could
> also reduce/eliminate off-peak and MTM. The idea would be to move
> people off their $70/mo plans and up to the $100/mo plan (plus
> "regulatory fee recovery" charges, natch).
>
> On the flip side, it moves many over to the prepaid side of the house in
> one way or another--which is no doubt what the big carriers want.


I don't think carriers "want" to move people to prepaid- just the opposite
in fact. Prepaid users tend to have lower ARPU and higher churn. Of the
big 4, only T-Mo seems to actively court prepaid users, as opposed to
tolerate them with punitive rates and restricted coverage (AT&T and Verizon)
or even disallow them (Sprint has no prepaid plan at all- they only do
prepaid through MVNOs like Virgin and Boost.)

> It'll just turn into an even clearer definition between prepaid and
> contract, that's all.

I doubt it- it'll just be a forced price increase disguised as "greater
value." The $19.99 monthly plans disappeared years ago, most carriers
dropped their $29.99 plans in the last year or two, and I expect the $39.99
plans are next to go. Entry level for cellular will quietly become $49.99,
with lots of extra minutes so it'll seem more palatable.

Like I said in a prior post, don't be surprised if some carrier will launch
a new "simplified pricing" model soon (6 months to a year) with only two
base plans- a fairly large minute bucket for $50 (like 1000 plus M2M and
N&W) and "unlimited" for $100. Then there will be bundled plans like $80
for the $50 plan with x# thousand texts/MMS x# MB of mobile web/TV/virtual
kitchen sink, etc. and $150 for unlimited minutes/messaging/video/web etc.

At least the brochures will be easier to read! ;-)

SMS wrote:
> Ben Skversky wrote:
>> Great post. You are 1000% correct. I don't even need the 1000
>> minutes I get from T-mobile, but I'm only paying $39.99 & that
>> includes free nights & weekends.
>
> Yes, T-Mobile is a great deal for a lot of peak minutes. Unfortunately
> they have no coverage yet where I live, and poor coverage where I
> usually travel to.
>
If they had better coverage, they wouldn't be only $40! There's a point
there somewhere that some seem to miss. Maybe it's me. Sorry.

At 22 Feb 2008 13:33:14 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> Well, I do agree that it will be a disguised price increase--beyond even
> what they've done over the past two years, which is large.

Agreed.


> But it just means that more people won't pay the $50 to $75/month, and
> will instead move to prepaid.

You give people too much credit! ;-) Who'd have thought years ago that
"basic cable" would start at $50/month?

I never thought people would tolerate $40/month as entry-level cellular and
it hasn't stopped them! (My first cellular plan was $14.99/month for TEN
minutes a month back in 1990 or so!) If $40 wasn't a problem, $50 won't be
either, unfortunately.

At 22 Feb 2008 15:16:12 -0500 Carl wrote:

> > Yes, T-Mobile is a great deal for a lot of peak minutes. Unfortunately
> > they have no coverage yet where I live, and poor coverage where I
> > usually travel to.
> >
> If they had better coverage, they wouldn't be only $40! There's a point
> there somewhere that some seem to miss. Maybe it's me. Sorry.


Or maybe believing that is how Verizon's and AT&T's customers get to sleep
at night! ;-)

At 22 Feb 2008 10:15:55 -0800 SMS wrote:

> LOL, well in a large corporation they have a telecommunications
> department that would handle billing and equpment issues, and
> presumably they'd be able to ensure that all the phones were operational.

I know, I was just Being facetious.

> There are no physical refill cards to hand out, and when on the unlimited
> plan there is no worry about someone running out of minutes.

Actually there is- the unlimited plan isn't billed monthly, but daily. The
daily $2-2.50 is taken from the balance as is texting and roaming charges.
Five minutes of roaming (or a few dozen texts!) will eat a day of unlimited
use, so you need to stay on top of your balance (and with PP's lack of any
online account maintenance, that's relatively difficult.)

A lot of them will benefit including business users like me.


"Todd Allcock" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> At 22 Feb 2008 10:15:55 -0800 SMS wrote:
>
>> LOL, well in a large corporation they have a telecommunications
>> department that would handle billing and equpment issues, and
>> presumably they'd be able to ensure that all the phones were operational.
>
> I know, I was just Being facetious.
>
>> There are no physical refill cards to hand out, and when on the unlimited
>> plan there is no worry about someone running out of minutes.
>
> Actually there is- the unlimited plan isn't billed monthly, but daily.
> The
> daily $2-2.50 is taken from the balance as is texting and roaming charges.
> Five minutes of roaming (or a few dozen texts!) will eat a day of
> unlimited
> use, so you need to stay on top of your balance (and with PP's lack of any
> online account maintenance, that's relatively difficult.)
>
>

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 22 Feb 2008 13:33:14 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
>
>> Well, I do agree that it will be a disguised price increase--beyond even
>> what they've done over the past two years, which is large.
>
> Agreed.
>
>
>> But it just means that more people won't pay the $50 to $75/month, and
>> will instead move to prepaid.
>
> You give people too much credit! ;-) Who'd have thought years ago that
> "basic cable" would start at $50/month?

I've been out of the loop having had satellite for quite a few years,
but I recently looked at the Comcast web site and I was amazed to see
how much cable costs now. Satellite is no bargain, but it's far less
expensive than the equivalent programming from Comcast.

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 22 Feb 2008 15:16:12 -0500 Carl wrote:
>
>>> Yes, T-Mobile is a great deal for a lot of peak minutes. Unfortunately
>>> they have no coverage yet where I live, and poor coverage where I
>>> usually travel to.
>>>
>> If they had better coverage, they wouldn't be only $40! There's a point
>> there somewhere that some seem to miss. Maybe it's me. Sorry.
>
>
> Or maybe believing that is how Verizon's and AT&T's customers get to sleep
> at night! ;-)

Yes, that's how I am able to sleep.

Seriously though, I have two GSM phones without 800 MHz, my original
Cingular GSM phone from when Cingular out west was only 1900 MHz, and my
tri-mode "traveling phone" which is 900/1800/1900. If I put my SIM card
into one of those phones, which limits me to roaming on the T-Mobile
network with SpeakOut (an AT&T MVNO), the loss of coverage is very
noticeable (starting with no coverage where I live, unless I go outside
and down the street a bit).

The big problem with T-Mo, is that they won't let you roam onto AT&T in
areas where they have a network. According to some Sprint users, if you
set your handset to roaming only then Sprint does allow roaming onto
Verizon even in areas where Sprint has a network.