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Why Verizon Doesn't Want You To Buy an iPhone
Hugh Pickens writes "Sascha Segan writes that although Verizon adamantly denies steering customers away from Apple's iPhones in favor of 4G LTE-enabled Android devices, he is convinced that Verizon has a strong reason to push buyers away from the iPhone. 'Here's the problem,' writes Segan. 'Verizon has spent millions of dollars rolling out its massive LTE network' but the carrier can't easily add capacity on its old 3G network. Since the iPhone isn't a 4G phone, sales of Verizon iPhones just crowd up their already busy 3G network while their 4G network has plenty of space. 'The iPhone is a great device. But it's making a crowded network more crowded. Until the LTE iPhone comes along, to rebalance its network, Verizon may quietly push Android phones.'"
I have a 4G/LTE capable Android phone (Samsung Conquer on Sprint). 4G is fast, where it's available, but I leave it off except when I really need more speed than 3G can provide and I don't have Wi-Fi available, because it kills battery life. About 90% of the time, I have Wi-Fi, and most of the remainder, 3G is fast enough. So, if and when 4G/LTE chipsets can provide the speed without a major hit to battery life, that will be a viable option. Not so coincidentally, that's exactly the reason Apple gave for not supporting LTE yet.
So, from technical perspective, it may appear to make sense to push customers to 4G/LTE phones, many will do as I have and turn off 4G eliminating the technical advantages. Many of the others will complain about the battery life, it's not necessarily good customer relations.
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That is...actually a fiendishly good idea. I'm not sure why you got Funny, that should have been insightful. And any verizon wireless rep that's reading this, there's your answer.
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1. The Lumia 900 is not a CDMA LTE device. Which in the US kind of shoots it in the foot. Verizon which is number one in the US is CDMA as is Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T are GSM CDMA carriers.
2. There are three players right now. Don't forget RIM. While not doing great these days they have more marketshare than WP7.
3. The Lumia 900 may not run WP8 which is really going to suck for those people that bought the "first real Windows Phone 7 phone".
4. Windows 8 is the real OS that will make Microsoft competitive in the market.... Except that is what they said about WM6 WM6.5 and WP7 so I would not hold my breath.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I suspect that carriers have a somewhat mixed view of encouraging Microsoft to not fail.
In their competition with other wireless carriers, the carriers do want spiffy devices that will sell contracts and data plans. However, in the fight between telcos and tech companies over how the money gets divided, having strong handset and internet-based-services entities is Very Much Not what they want.
The AT&T/iPhone case is the most blatant: AT&T had an exclusive on what people wanted, and scored substantial sales despite constant whining about how their network sucked. However, Apple demanded a nontrivial slice, and their expansion into 'iMessage' and 'Facetime' and whatnot, never mind the annihilation of carrier download stores in favor of their own, shows a distinct disinterest in protecting the carrier's future gouging for SMS and other such services.
Given Microsoft's strong control of their platform and(while currently rather larval) strong potential for future integration with MS-controlled services to the exclusion of carrier ones, it isn't obvious that a carrier would want to encourage them.
Android, by contrast, is fairly closely controlled by Google if you want the full, blessed, all-google-goodness, flagship; but Google's very weak control over the periphery of the Android ecosystem means that it is trivial to get just about any company that makes cellphones to puke up an Android handset for you, complete with carrier branding and crapware, at cutthroat commodity prices. There is also some flexibility when it comes to hardware design. Consider something like the 'Motorola Admiral'(known to its somewhat reluctant users as the 'droidberry'). Not a wildly compelling phone; but the fact that you can get hardware that looks like that churned out probably helps the next time you and RIM go to the table about Blackberry service pricing...
One reason is that I've read that among smart phone users, that those with Android tend to use a lot more data than the average iPhone user. My guess is that's because the average iPhone user is closer to "joe six pack" who is likely downing a few apps and songs, but mostly doing light surfing and checking email. Whereas a lot of android users are more geekish and tend to use the data side more.
I know with my iPhone I've averaged about 450MB of data per month over the life of my last contract and only once went over 1GB. Only reason I know this is I remember when AT&T dumped the unlimited data plan I was a bit irked as I'd never really needed 2GB, but 200MB wasn't enough and wishing they had a 500MB plan. Which is probably what their numbers showed that an average user probably used around 400MB a month so force them to get the higher option.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I have about 14 friends who got first generation droid phones back before the iPhone came to Verizon. The reason was it was the closest to an iPhone Verizon had and they were not going to go to AT&T. Given the difference in coverage in that area, Verizon had an advantage. That was 2010. I was back visiting recently and what surprised me was the fact they ALL had iPhones now. Every single one when they went to renew their contracts chose the iPhone over the newer droids.
Yeah I know, circumstantial evidence I know, but in the same time frame I've known exactly 1 of my friends who left the iPhone for the Droid Razr. Now a lot of my friends have left AT&T (including myself) for other carriers, but they've stayed with the iPhone.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I recently decided to try out Android before someone takes away my geek card :)
It's fun from a dicking around perspective, but I can definitely see how the average user would see it as inferior. It has taken me untold hours of screwing around to figure out how to get the same battery life as my old iPhones had, despite having a larger battery. In the end, I settled on an application that fixes the screen dimming on my phone and another that limits how often apps can use the data connection when the phone's screen is off, and another that sets the data networks on and off depending on where I physically am located.
Now on the one hand, I'm massively impressed because none of that would be possible on a stock iPhone. On the other hand, I never felt the need to look for those kinds of applications on an iPhone. Oh, and the jailbreaking thing is easier than the rooting thing - or at least it was for me. And yes you need root for the really fun stuff (and to keep the geek card). Backup needs some serious help on Android. I have done the standard thing and replaced the rescue utility with the fancy CWM-based recovery utility, but really that kind of thing should be included.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
A business wants to increase their profits and increase their margins continuously.
And that's the fallacy of continual growth. Continual growth is only possible if your growth rate is less than or equal to the growth rate of the market. If you growth rate exceeds the growth rate of the market, then no matter how small you start, or how large the market, you will eventually hit a maximum. Businesses (and stockholders) demand sustained growth exceeding the market growth, and that's simply impossible. You can only do that for a limited time. Moving into additional markets allows continued growth in those markets, but it's not enough to sustain continual geometric growth. It's simple math, yet it escapes most executives and stockholders.
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