The cell phone industry - Whats wrong?

[Freak'n Big Panda]

A few years back I finally bit the bullet and bought a cell phone, signed up with rogers for a three year contract with a unlocked Samsung D600 only to find that the vast majority of features on my phone were completely unusable because of the ridiculous bandwidth caps. I had 500K a month total, and each kb after that cost me 5C.. this really adds up fast if your browsing the web with oprea mini or a similar browser. Now my question is why don't cell phone service providers offer a bandwidth based plan just like every ISP on the planet of the earth? The ISP could simply offer plans with one number; bandwidth. To compare plans all the consumer would need to do is look at two values, price and bandwidth.

The reasons are so bloody obvious:

First off the plan selection would be *greatly* simplified. Consumers would only have a few choices opposed to the literally unlimited number of plans you can have with current providers

Secondly such a network would allow consumers to really start to exploit the features found on mobiles. Mobile net we would undoubtedly become insanely popular, phones like the iphone would also have much much greater market acceptance. So big perks for manufacturers of feature phones.

Lastly if any provider introduced such a system of plans they would instantly start to grab huge amounts of market share. They could exploit their advantage and eventually consumers would follow.

Anyways I'd love to hear some peoples thoughts on this, I'm really not sure why this hasn't happened yet. I know rogers offers unlimited data plans but they're far from promoted and only offered for black berry users as far as I know.

I need some opinions! Thanks in advance.

BTW: I wasn't really sure where to post it so if a mod thinks it's better off in the general section please move it. Thanks!

 

[Scott_Arm]

A few years back I finally bit the bullet and bought a cell phone, signed up with rogers for a three year contract with a unlocked Samsung D600 only to find that the vast majority of features on my phone were completely unusable because of the ridiculous bandwidth caps. I had 500K a month total, and each kb after that cost me 5C.. this really adds up fast if your browsing the web with oprea mini or a similar browser. Now my question is why don't cell phone service providers offer a bandwidth based plan just like every ISP on the planet of the earth? The ISP could simply offer plans with one number; bandwidth. To compare plans all the consumer would need to do is look at two values, price and bandwidth.

The reasons are so bloody obvious:

First off the plan selection would be *greatly* simplified. Consumers would only have a few choices opposed to the literally unlimited number of plans you can have with current providers

Secondly such a network would allow consumers to really start to exploit the features found on mobiles. Mobile net we would undoubtedly become insanely popular, phones like the iphone would also have much much greater market acceptance. So big perks for manufacturers of feature phones.

Lastly if any provider introduced such a system of plans they would instantly start to grab huge amounts of market share. They could exploit their advantage and eventually consumers would follow.

Anyways I'd love to hear some peoples thoughts on this, I'm really not sure why this hasn't happened yet. I know rogers offers unlimited data plans but they're far from promoted and only offered for black berry users as far as I know.

I need some opinions! Thanks in advance.

BTW: I wasn't really sure where to post it so if a mod thinks it's better off in the general section please move it. Thanks!

My understanding is the bandwidth problems are far worse for us Canadians. Data plans are FAR superior in the rest of the world, especially the USA where you can get unlimited bandwidth, I think.

 

[Saem]

The problem is that due to the typical three year lock-in that most plans have with them, the Canadian cell phone market is very slow moving. For instance, unless you're offering me the world, I'm not interested in paying $400 to get out of my current Bell plan and have a useless CDMA phone after that.

Which leads me to the other problem, Fido (pre-buyout) and Rogers are the only ones with a GSM network, now Fido's network was sold to Primus and Rogers/Fido are on Rogers -- Primus is a bit player. The rest are CDMA networks, which seems to drop most everyone into old crappy phones. Fido, with their City Fido plan was really starting to change the way Canadians would regard cellphone services, too bad the buyout was allowed to happen.

Now we have cellphone companies, locking customers in for as long as possible, and trying to offer them narrow views of "their" internet, in an attempt to milk the customer for the content they're pushing.

+Slow moving market
+Crap phones
+Lack of competition
+Aging infrastructure

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

My understanding is the bandwidth problems are far worse for us Canadians. Data plans are FAR superior in the rest of the world, especially the USA where you can get unlimited bandwidth, I think.

well the presence of data plans still doesn't do much for me. what would be ideal is if all calls, texts, everything you did on your cell was billed with everything else. No minutes per month, no # of texts per month, nothing. Just plans like 500MB a month and 1.5GB a month etc. I don't really see why this isn't possible as that's what it all comes down too anyway.

The problem is that due to the typical three year lock-in that most plans have with them, the Canadian cell phone market is very slow moving. For instance, unless you're offering me the world, I'm not interested in paying $400 to get out of my current Bell plan and have a useless CDMA phone after that.

Which leads me to the other problem, Fido (pre-buyout) and Rogers are the only ones with a GSM network, now Fido's network was sold to Primus and Rogers/Fido are on Rogers -- Primus is a bit player. The rest are CDMA networks, which seems to drop most everyone into old crappy phones. Fido, with their City Fido plan was really starting to change the way Canadians would regard cellphone services, too bad the buyout was allowed to happen.

Now we have cellphone companies, locking customers in for as long as possible, and trying to offer them narrow views of "their" internet, in an attempt to milk the customer for the content they're pushing.

+Slow moving market
+Crap phones
+Lack of competition
+Aging infrastructure

Good points. So I see one main issue: rogers sucks. I don't believe theres any technical reason why they wouldn't be doing this but please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Zaphod]

I believe the mobile market, strange as it may seem, needs regulation to thrive. A limit on the length of lock-in contracts, and none of that 'sorry, you need to get a preapproved neutered phone IMEI-registered to our network'. Disassociate the plans from the phones (carriers can still offer phone subsidies for new contracts with a mandatory subscription period) and the market will move much faster.

Around here, operators can either tie subsidies to the contract or the phone (not both), so the only locked phones are basically pay-as-you-go phones 'charged' either by code cards or CC. Operators can't disallow unlocked phones on their network either, so as long as you have a valid SIM card from them you can put it in whatever phone you like. Also, when you change operator you can take your number with you. This has resulted in a highly modern phone market with a quick turnaround and one of the (the?) highest per capita numbers of active phones in the world (more phones than people, actually). 'Full price' phones are pretty cheap, basic service is getting ever cheaper (almost down to free), and the adoption of advanced/premium services is high.

Oh, yeah, I forgot: When advertising 'free' phones, the operators must state explicitly what will be the minimum yearly cost including all connection fees, monthly rentals or whatnot averaged over the length of the locked in contract. Not surprisingly, when presented like that, many realize that 'free' is more costly than 'expensive' with the non-locked in contact of their choice.

In short: Get rid of most of the vendor lock-in incentives and make the running cost structure transparent for the consumer.

 

[roninja]

nothing wrong with the N95 it does everything and needs a bit of charging a well ;-)

 

[Mintmaster]

My understanding is the bandwidth problems are far worse for us Canadians. Data plans are FAR superior in the rest of the world, especially the USA where you can get unlimited bandwidth, I think.

I'm not too interested in data, but I found the plans in Canada are much more reasonable. $20-$25 a month gets you a decent plan.

I'm studying in the US, and it's tough to find a plan for under $40 a month. Some carriers have $30 plans, but they often suck and you usually you can't use them in phone discounts. In the end I went with prepaid.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm not too interested in data, but I found the plans in Canada are much more reasonable. $20-$25 a month gets you a decent plan.

I'm studying in the US, and it's tough to find a plan for under $40 a month. Some carriers have $30 plans, but they often suck and you usually you can't use them in phone discounts. In the end I went with prepaid.

I actually have a fantastic phone plan in terms of phone minutes. I've known people that have been able to bargain their way into extremely good plans by threatening to switch to a different carrier when their contract was up. I still think the price of sending text messages and using web features if FAR too high.

 

[Emendo]

It's the fact that we have 3 major carriers in Canada who are extremely disciplined.

Even with mobile number portability in Canada, no carrier has done any significant things to gain market share.

 

[AlphaWolf]

It's the fact that we have 3 major carriers in Canada who are extremely disciplined.

Even with mobile number portability in Canada, no carrier has done any significant things to gain market share.

I believe the word you are looking for is collusion.