How's Your Cell Service?

Coldeagle writes "Well for those of us who are fed up with your current leash...Cellular phone providers... Here is an interesting article on various US cell phone providers and how their service adds up."

Comments

You get what you pay for

[Andy Dodd]

Verizon is significantly more expensive than most other US-based providers.

It has always been (in my opinion) worth the extra money, so I'm not surprised they were ranked #1.

This is an interesting article?

[rlsnyder]

The standards for "intersting article" seem to have gotten lower. This is a very brief writeup of a customer satisfaction survey. There is very little information on how the survey was taken, and the scoring on the survey ranks in the range of 0-104, with all services being ranked right next to each other at the top of the spectrum (with only a few % difference between each).

In other words, a short article vaguely describing a survey with largely insignificant differentiation in results. Whoo hoo!

Regional Considerations

[timothy_m_smith]

The problem with this article is that mobile service should be rated regionally as opposed to nationally. I understand that some carriers have national plans, but in general each carrier has strengths in different geographic areas.

No

[computechnica]

There are still alot of rural areas out west that do not have any service. I doubt some of the areas in the commercials really had service.

Re:How's My Cell Service?

[Chelloveck]

Funny, I thought the biggest profit for cell phone companies was retention of customers.

It is, but only because they're not giving incentives to the retained customers. The extra profit comes from the existing customers paying full rate (and probably on an older, more expensive plan) whereas the new customers get XX months or YY minutes discounted. Give the existing customers a discount and they're no longer a profit center.

Which is why phone providers are so vehemently opposed to number portability. The current pricing structures try to get as many new customers as possible, and try to wring as much money as possible from the existing customers. The only incentive there is for people to continue with one provider is that they'd have to get a new number if they switched. Enter number portability and you get to take your number with you to any provider. Now there's absolutely no reason not to jump to a new provider for the incentives every year or two.

Of course, any provider with a sensible pricing policy has nothing to fear. Call me when you find one...