A New Kind of Wireless Company
I recently read that Cingular and Sprint got some of the lowest marks when it comes to customer service. I wasn't surprised with Sprint as I'm a home customer (DSL only), but I was a bit disappointed with a company that claims to be on the forefront of technology like Cingular. Especially since I was about to change my service from Verizon (no love there either) to Cingular prior to reading the article. I'm having second thoughts now (Word-of-Mouth at work).
A new kind of company needs to take a book from the NEW airline industry (JetBlue and Southwest) and simplify the very lucrative wireless world. I predict it will happen in the next 18 months (you heard it here first). With the advent of free WIFI (Google comes to mind) and innovative approaches to handsets (802.11b compliant like the Nokia 9300) paired with great services like Skype I see some creative company taking this fat cow by the udders.
There are, however, barriers to this, call it 4G convergence.
- Handsets with enough processing power ( not to mention software)to switch from 802.11b, GSM, CDMA networks dynamically (and not burn your ear off).
- Peering of the various carriers (not to mention technologies) involved
- Billing systems to divide the pie and charge the customer
- A big-box retailer to push the brand
- Early adopters
Finally give consumers easy plans (not US Tax code complexity) and great customer service. Essentially do the opposite of what the big carriers are doing. Wouldn't that be a change?
Any takers?
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