Can the Cellphone Industry Keep Growing?

[equalizer]

[quote=sdduuuude]I have a second landline phone at my house. It costs me $55/month, though I make very few calls on it.

I have a Verizon plan which allows me to add mobiles for $9.99/month, and any usage on that phone gets subtracted from the minutes I have available for use every month.

Basically, by moving this second line to my Verizon account, I will save $45/month. That move is coming soon.

When people lose their job, they keep their cell phone. It’s that simple. Many will pay their cell phone bill BEFORE rent. Few, if any, industries survied the early 90’s better than wireless.

Some data:
http://www.ctia.org/media/index.cfm/AID/11500
Wireless minutes grew an 10% (yoy) in the first half of 2008. To clarify – that’s the first 6 months of the recession.

I think the industry will continue to grow, but barely. They’ll lose some of the teen market and people will buy crappier phones, but landline substitution for both voice and data will continue.

There may be some price/market share battles through the tough times so some weaker players (Sprint?) may get eaten up. Capitalization and customer service will be key to retention.

I also think T-Mobile is not in the best position due to the fact that they are on a low-capacity system but likely don’t have the capital to upgrade it, and yes – they need to upgrade it. If you aren’t going to listen to CDMAEng on this matter, you might as well not even bother asking anyone on this board.

Cricket has $500M – $1B in capital and are focused on the right customer base.
“Everyone’s a Cricket customer now.”
HEH, HEH.[/quote]

sdude,

you are getting ripped off? As a major QCOM and VZ holder, I wish you weren’t kidding.
Your second line cost $55?? ATT offers phone line starting at $10 for basic line. For $40 on land line you get unlimited calling in US, that’s 43,200 minutes free, VZ wireless is $99 for one line. Cable cos have unlimited in CA for $20/mo for US/CAN for $30/mo.

My Verizon Wire account reps said that cell modem is NOT cable modem replacement. The modem cost for $59.99/mo has limit of 5GB/month. Over that it is $25/MB, so if you hit 6GB, your data cost would be 60+250=$310! The old data plan had strict limit of 5GB, going over would get you banned from VZW.

On the Bright side or “Why you should sell your house and buy these two stocks”:

The PDA phones are the fastest growing category with Average Revenue Per Unit (ARPU) over $100/mo. The Iphone/Blackeberry is what the Nike Jordan shoes were in the 90’s or what Coach/Louis Vuitton bags were 2005.

From VZ Q4 2008 report:
“As we have seen all year, about 70% of service revenue growth is driven by wireless data. Wireless data represented 26.8% of total service revenue in the fourth quarter. Data revenue is now in excess of $10 billion annually, up 44% in 2008. Total data ARPU in the fourth quarter grew by $3.02 or nearly 28% year-over-year.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/116798-verizon-communications-inc-q4-2008-earnings-call-transcript?page=3

Hello, 44% growth in data revenue!! Bring on 4G, 5G and print that money.

gotta go and check out that Samsung Omnia phone. Anyone have any thoughts on that phone?
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=4366

[sdduuuude]

I have some special goodies on the line that add up. I’m looking into a product like this one:

http://www.golinuxshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=37466

It feeds the house phone line, but uses the cell phone for the connection. I suspect I won’t like the quality or delay, but worth a try.

I agree – mobile internet access is not a direct sub for cable modem, but in crunch times, people may choose to dump landline ISPs instead of the mobile access just cuz its cheaper.

Thanks to the OP for raising a great question.

Thanks to you for bringing data.

[sdduuuude]

I have some special goodies on the line that add up. I’m looking into a product like this one:

http://www.golinuxshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=37466

It feeds the house phone line, but uses the cell phone for the connection. I suspect I won’t like the quality or delay, but worth a try.

I agree – mobile internet access is not a direct sub for cable modem, but in crunch times, people may choose to dump landline ISPs instead of the mobile access just cuz its cheaper.

Thanks to the OP for raising a great question.

Thanks to you for bringing data.

[sdduuuude]

I have some special goodies on the line that add up. I’m looking into a product like this one:

http://www.golinuxshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=37466

It feeds the house phone line, but uses the cell phone for the connection. I suspect I won’t like the quality or delay, but worth a try.

I agree – mobile internet access is not a direct sub for cable modem, but in crunch times, people may choose to dump landline ISPs instead of the mobile access just cuz its cheaper.

Thanks to the OP for raising a great question.

Thanks to you for bringing data.

[sdduuuude]

I have some special goodies on the line that add up. I’m looking into a product like this one:

http://www.golinuxshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=37466

It feeds the house phone line, but uses the cell phone for the connection. I suspect I won’t like the quality or delay, but worth a try.

I agree – mobile internet access is not a direct sub for cable modem, but in crunch times, people may choose to dump landline ISPs instead of the mobile access just cuz its cheaper.

Thanks to the OP for raising a great question.

Thanks to you for bringing data.

[sdduuuude]

I have some special goodies on the line that add up. I’m looking into a product like this one:

http://www.golinuxshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=37466

It feeds the house phone line, but uses the cell phone for the connection. I suspect I won’t like the quality or delay, but worth a try.

I agree – mobile internet access is not a direct sub for cable modem, but in crunch times, people may choose to dump landline ISPs instead of the mobile access just cuz its cheaper.

Thanks to the OP for raising a great question.

Thanks to you for bringing data.

[CDMA ENG]

Hehe…

Thanks for the “mad props” SDduuuude!

But I think that this arguement is a little off point. This thread started off talking about the Cell Phone market. What you guys are talking about is the Carrier Market. Two very different things!

The fact that the cell phone market is saturated does not mean that the carrier market is too (yes I do know that it actually is but you can not make the case using cell phone manufactor as the sounding board). If you read RCR Wireless magazine cell phone manufactor’s were having problems selling phone well ahead these poor economic times. The fact that ppl are now hanging on to their phones longer does not translate into any difference in subscriber adds in the market place. It’s just the fact that ppl are not “blinging” out thier phones as frequently when the one they had still works fine.

A HUGE problem for cell phone carriers is that 50 percent of all cell phones that are turned in due to “not working” turned out to be just fine when placed on the engineer’s bench for failure analysis and the remainder that were turned in were functioning cell phones! So all these phones that are being turned in were essentially function devices! PPL are simply holding on to these devices now and not purchasing new ones. To the cell phone manufactor that is disaterous!

(And another point is the need to upgrade due to changing technology. A large number of upgrades in the past were soley due to technology changes at the carrier level. e.g. GSM to UMTS or a Rev 0 to Rev A and so on. With money being tight you will not see these technology leaps from the carriers and hence one less, and substantial, reason to change out the phone)

But that does not couple to the carrier market. Equalizer does an excellent job of disproving PatientlyWaiting’s theory of “people not wanting data services”. Hell I just spent 2 weeks of my life argueing with my national data capacity team for cell site upgrades. Data is growing like a rocket! Tmob sees this as a extreme disadvantage. They want to be a carrier that competes with VZ and ATT not with Cricket and Metro. To do this you need to upgrade to sell competive data services and TMob wants to in the worst way. Hello!!! The G-Phone! (yes I do know what TMob is thinking. Two of my closest friends work there).

Equalizer good point about the $100 ARPU but at the same time it is hard not to have $100 dollar ARPU when the basic plan runs 100 dollars! :p

As for the 5GB cap. I look at sites everyday and rarely do I see a cell site get anywhere close to that number for the entire day! I was wondering do you actually know someone that went over the 5GB limit? Just curios as to what applications he was running.

Peace out… It is now 7am and I have to go kick my repective cell phone network in the butt… or is it that it kicks me in the butt??? Whatever! You know what I mean.

Oink Oink Oink, my piggies,

CE

P.S. SDDuuuude… I am dreaming of Tacos el Gordo soon!

Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el GordoTacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy… hehehe… That is Taco el Gordos free plug on piggies… Best Tacos in SD!

[CDMA ENG]

Hehe…

Thanks for the “mad props” SDduuuude!

But I think that this arguement is a little off point. This thread started off talking about the Cell Phone market. What you guys are talking about is the Carrier Market. Two very different things!

The fact that the cell phone market is saturated does not mean that the carrier market is too (yes I do know that it actually is but you can not make the case using cell phone manufactor as the sounding board). If you read RCR Wireless magazine cell phone manufactor’s were having problems selling phone well ahead these poor economic times. The fact that ppl are now hanging on to their phones longer does not translate into any difference in subscriber adds in the market place. It’s just the fact that ppl are not “blinging” out thier phones as frequently when the one they had still works fine.

A HUGE problem for cell phone carriers is that 50 percent of all cell phones that are turned in due to “not working” turned out to be just fine when placed on the engineer’s bench for failure analysis and the remainder that were turned in were functioning cell phones! So all these phones that are being turned in were essentially function devices! PPL are simply holding on to these devices now and not purchasing new ones. To the cell phone manufactor that is disaterous!

(And another point is the need to upgrade due to changing technology. A large number of upgrades in the past were soley due to technology changes at the carrier level. e.g. GSM to UMTS or a Rev 0 to Rev A and so on. With money being tight you will not see these technology leaps from the carriers and hence one less, and substantial, reason to change out the phone)

But that does not couple to the carrier market. Equalizer does an excellent job of disproving PatientlyWaiting’s theory of “people not wanting data services”. Hell I just spent 2 weeks of my life argueing with my national data capacity team for cell site upgrades. Data is growing like a rocket! Tmob sees this as a extreme disadvantage. They want to be a carrier that competes with VZ and ATT not with Cricket and Metro. To do this you need to upgrade to sell competive data services and TMob wants to in the worst way. Hello!!! The G-Phone! (yes I do know what TMob is thinking. Two of my closest friends work there).

Equalizer good point about the $100 ARPU but at the same time it is hard not to have $100 dollar ARPU when the basic plan runs 100 dollars! :p

As for the 5GB cap. I look at sites everyday and rarely do I see a cell site get anywhere close to that number for the entire day! I was wondering do you actually know someone that went over the 5GB limit? Just curios as to what applications he was running.

Peace out… It is now 7am and I have to go kick my repective cell phone network in the butt… or is it that it kicks me in the butt??? Whatever! You know what I mean.

Oink Oink Oink, my piggies,

CE

P.S. SDDuuuude… I am dreaming of Tacos el Gordo soon!

Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el GordoTacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy… hehehe… That is Taco el Gordos free plug on piggies… Best Tacos in SD!

[CDMA ENG]

Hehe…

Thanks for the “mad props” SDduuuude!

But I think that this arguement is a little off point. This thread started off talking about the Cell Phone market. What you guys are talking about is the Carrier Market. Two very different things!

The fact that the cell phone market is saturated does not mean that the carrier market is too (yes I do know that it actually is but you can not make the case using cell phone manufactor as the sounding board). If you read RCR Wireless magazine cell phone manufactor’s were having problems selling phone well ahead these poor economic times. The fact that ppl are now hanging on to their phones longer does not translate into any difference in subscriber adds in the market place. It’s just the fact that ppl are not “blinging” out thier phones as frequently when the one they had still works fine.

A HUGE problem for cell phone carriers is that 50 percent of all cell phones that are turned in due to “not working” turned out to be just fine when placed on the engineer’s bench for failure analysis and the remainder that were turned in were functioning cell phones! So all these phones that are being turned in were essentially function devices! PPL are simply holding on to these devices now and not purchasing new ones. To the cell phone manufactor that is disaterous!

(And another point is the need to upgrade due to changing technology. A large number of upgrades in the past were soley due to technology changes at the carrier level. e.g. GSM to UMTS or a Rev 0 to Rev A and so on. With money being tight you will not see these technology leaps from the carriers and hence one less, and substantial, reason to change out the phone)

But that does not couple to the carrier market. Equalizer does an excellent job of disproving PatientlyWaiting’s theory of “people not wanting data services”. Hell I just spent 2 weeks of my life argueing with my national data capacity team for cell site upgrades. Data is growing like a rocket! Tmob sees this as a extreme disadvantage. They want to be a carrier that competes with VZ and ATT not with Cricket and Metro. To do this you need to upgrade to sell competive data services and TMob wants to in the worst way. Hello!!! The G-Phone! (yes I do know what TMob is thinking. Two of my closest friends work there).

Equalizer good point about the $100 ARPU but at the same time it is hard not to have $100 dollar ARPU when the basic plan runs 100 dollars! :p

As for the 5GB cap. I look at sites everyday and rarely do I see a cell site get anywhere close to that number for the entire day! I was wondering do you actually know someone that went over the 5GB limit? Just curios as to what applications he was running.

Peace out… It is now 7am and I have to go kick my repective cell phone network in the butt… or is it that it kicks me in the butt??? Whatever! You know what I mean.

Oink Oink Oink, my piggies,

CE

P.S. SDDuuuude… I am dreaming of Tacos el Gordo soon!

Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el GordoTacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy… hehehe… That is Taco el Gordos free plug on piggies… Best Tacos in SD!

[CDMA ENG]

Hehe…

Thanks for the “mad props” SDduuuude!

But I think that this arguement is a little off point. This thread started off talking about the Cell Phone market. What you guys are talking about is the Carrier Market. Two very different things!

The fact that the cell phone market is saturated does not mean that the carrier market is too (yes I do know that it actually is but you can not make the case using cell phone manufactor as the sounding board). If you read RCR Wireless magazine cell phone manufactor’s were having problems selling phone well ahead these poor economic times. The fact that ppl are now hanging on to their phones longer does not translate into any difference in subscriber adds in the market place. It’s just the fact that ppl are not “blinging” out thier phones as frequently when the one they had still works fine.

A HUGE problem for cell phone carriers is that 50 percent of all cell phones that are turned in due to “not working” turned out to be just fine when placed on the engineer’s bench for failure analysis and the remainder that were turned in were functioning cell phones! So all these phones that are being turned in were essentially function devices! PPL are simply holding on to these devices now and not purchasing new ones. To the cell phone manufactor that is disaterous!

(And another point is the need to upgrade due to changing technology. A large number of upgrades in the past were soley due to technology changes at the carrier level. e.g. GSM to UMTS or a Rev 0 to Rev A and so on. With money being tight you will not see these technology leaps from the carriers and hence one less, and substantial, reason to change out the phone)

But that does not couple to the carrier market. Equalizer does an excellent job of disproving PatientlyWaiting’s theory of “people not wanting data services”. Hell I just spent 2 weeks of my life argueing with my national data capacity team for cell site upgrades. Data is growing like a rocket! Tmob sees this as a extreme disadvantage. They want to be a carrier that competes with VZ and ATT not with Cricket and Metro. To do this you need to upgrade to sell competive data services and TMob wants to in the worst way. Hello!!! The G-Phone! (yes I do know what TMob is thinking. Two of my closest friends work there).

Equalizer good point about the $100 ARPU but at the same time it is hard not to have $100 dollar ARPU when the basic plan runs 100 dollars! :p

As for the 5GB cap. I look at sites everyday and rarely do I see a cell site get anywhere close to that number for the entire day! I was wondering do you actually know someone that went over the 5GB limit? Just curios as to what applications he was running.

Peace out… It is now 7am and I have to go kick my repective cell phone network in the butt… or is it that it kicks me in the butt??? Whatever! You know what I mean.

Oink Oink Oink, my piggies,

CE

P.S. SDDuuuude… I am dreaming of Tacos el Gordo soon!

Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el GordoTacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy… hehehe… That is Taco el Gordos free plug on piggies… Best Tacos in SD!

[CDMA ENG]

Hehe…

Thanks for the “mad props” SDduuuude!

But I think that this arguement is a little off point. This thread started off talking about the Cell Phone market. What you guys are talking about is the Carrier Market. Two very different things!

The fact that the cell phone market is saturated does not mean that the carrier market is too (yes I do know that it actually is but you can not make the case using cell phone manufactor as the sounding board). If you read RCR Wireless magazine cell phone manufactor’s were having problems selling phone well ahead these poor economic times. The fact that ppl are now hanging on to their phones longer does not translate into any difference in subscriber adds in the market place. It’s just the fact that ppl are not “blinging” out thier phones as frequently when the one they had still works fine.

A HUGE problem for cell phone carriers is that 50 percent of all cell phones that are turned in due to “not working” turned out to be just fine when placed on the engineer’s bench for failure analysis and the remainder that were turned in were functioning cell phones! So all these phones that are being turned in were essentially function devices! PPL are simply holding on to these devices now and not purchasing new ones. To the cell phone manufactor that is disaterous!

(And another point is the need to upgrade due to changing technology. A large number of upgrades in the past were soley due to technology changes at the carrier level. e.g. GSM to UMTS or a Rev 0 to Rev A and so on. With money being tight you will not see these technology leaps from the carriers and hence one less, and substantial, reason to change out the phone)

But that does not couple to the carrier market. Equalizer does an excellent job of disproving PatientlyWaiting’s theory of “people not wanting data services”. Hell I just spent 2 weeks of my life argueing with my national data capacity team for cell site upgrades. Data is growing like a rocket! Tmob sees this as a extreme disadvantage. They want to be a carrier that competes with VZ and ATT not with Cricket and Metro. To do this you need to upgrade to sell competive data services and TMob wants to in the worst way. Hello!!! The G-Phone! (yes I do know what TMob is thinking. Two of my closest friends work there).

Equalizer good point about the $100 ARPU but at the same time it is hard not to have $100 dollar ARPU when the basic plan runs 100 dollars! :p

As for the 5GB cap. I look at sites everyday and rarely do I see a cell site get anywhere close to that number for the entire day! I was wondering do you actually know someone that went over the 5GB limit? Just curios as to what applications he was running.

Peace out… It is now 7am and I have to go kick my repective cell phone network in the butt… or is it that it kicks me in the butt??? Whatever! You know what I mean.

Oink Oink Oink, my piggies,

CE

P.S. SDDuuuude… I am dreaming of Tacos el Gordo soon!

Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el GordoTacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo Tacos el Gordo

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy… hehehe… That is Taco el Gordos free plug on piggies… Best Tacos in SD!

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