It's just like giving rebates on the phones. The cell companies don't make money on brand new customers for months because they give rebates on the phones. Take the good with the bad, the test drive will ultimately prove more profitable than not in the long run.

You obviously haven't been seeing that Verizon keeps beating Cingular in net adds every quarter. The only quarter in which Cingular ended up ahead was fourth quarter of '06, and that was by a measly 100,000. Verizon ended up adding more post-paid customers than Cingular did overall. Now, who's the real winner? The one with a bunch of prepaid customers who aren't very profitable? Or a guaranteed amount of money coming in for two years?

craptacularwireless said:
Now, who's the real winner? The one with a bunch of prepaid customers who aren't very profitable? Or a guaranteed amount of money coming in for two years?

Okay, can we got over the "who aren't very profitable" with the prepaid consumer thing? This has already been beaten to death, I don't see how it's still coming up.

Prepaid consumers are actually more profitable than most postpaid consumers under contract. The only difference is simply that...they aren't under contract.

Post paid customers are not neccessarily guaranteed income. Sh!t happens and people do not or cannot pay their bills.

And of course the debate of churn with PP versus post-paid. Yes I know.

Will

Notice how he didn't respond to this reply? Ohhhh thats why... he just got owned by the truth. And has no response.

It is great smart business practices because it will let the customer decide whether or not the service is for them and if not then they leave but if yes then they will be a long-term customer for 2 years. So let’s say the average first month would be $50 per month then if the customer signs onto a 2 year deal, or 24 months, we have to calculate $50 per month times 23 months which would be $1,150 so that shows that even if Verizon losses $50 for the first month, they can realize $1,150 from the customer over 2 years. Let’s say that the customer doesn’t want to continue the relationship they will be paying the termination fee, which would be around 3 or 4 months worth of monthly usage.

So overall, this is a very good idea to entice custom...
(continues)

Your 100% correct sort of. cingular does offer a 30 day buyers remorse. However, cingular still requires you to pay for the pro-rated charges(atleast they do in my market) and the activation fee between day 4-30 of the trial period. What verizon is offering is no fees whatsoever if you cancel within the 30 days. None for service or activation. I think it is not to show weakness or lack of profitability yet it is to show their confidence in their business practices and network quality.

wow so since most of your port ins are from cingular you must be right lol. Wasn't Verizon supposed to catch up with the number of Customers cingular has, last year?

just checking.

I wasn't saying that VZ has passed Cingular, just that your premise of VZ giving away services to everyone was incorrect. collect information, peruse, make an assumption, THEN pout.

Verizon Regains Lead In Wireless Subscribers; Sprint Gets Some Good News

Market research firm IDC says there were 236 million U.S. wireless subscribers at the end of 2006 and their data revenue totaled $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter.

By W. David Gardner
InformationWeek

April 4, 2007 11:19 AM

Battered by a run of bad news in recent months, Sprint Nextel received some welcome news Wednesday when research firm IDC reported that its customers spend more on wireless data than the customers of other wireless carriers.

IDC also said Verizon Wireless had moved past AT&T's Cingular Wireless in an important subscriber category. "Verizon became the new market leader in terms of total direct retail subscribers/customers, with a...
(continues)

another great thing about vzw, reps not explaining an applicable promotion. more reason to buy from cingular...honesty. I guess I do work for the right company.

TASCHALY said:
another great thing about vzw, reps not explaining an applicable promotion. more reason to buy from cingular...honesty. I guess I do work for the right company.

Oh please. So you're suggesting that every vzw rep is dishonest and every cingular rep is completely honest and explains every single promotion to every customer? There are bad reps for every company. A large part of a company's churn relies on weeding out the bad ones. Which in case you didn't know, vzw has been an industry leader

No I am completly aware that there are bad reps in every company. I am just saying that you are openly admitting that you LIE to your customers. Maybe not such a smart decision.

That wasn't me who made the original comment. I was replying to your lame post about cingular being more honest then vzw.

ajstrong said:
that and most of my lines have been port-ins. from Cingular.

Of course they are. Most of mine are Verizon. This is to be expected, since most cellular users are either Cingular or Verizon the majority of port ins are going to be from one company or the other.

schlittertex said:
I shouldn't have to dumb down my explanations.)

Then try harder to make some sense! Verizon is off the hizzle my nizzle and this is just there way of showing it! foo 🙂

I am making perfect sense, a company "as good as" Verizon, doesn't need this, unless they didn't make goals that they set prior, pure and simple.

Any company no matter how powerful they are in the market place needs to continue to attract customers and this way it allows them to do so basically saying if you guys try it and don’t like it we will pay for it, and that is a differentiator in the marketplace today. This is forcing the other companies to re-think their strategies with their 30-day policies. Verizon is saying come on other companies step up to the plate. Verizon is also saying to them basically we are the best and we are proving it by offering free service for the first 30 days, try to match us.

This is a great strategy that Verizon is doing.

The thing about the mobile phone industry in general now is that it is a take away business. With companies having lower churn rates and each company having a niche- you have to find a way to at least entice someone to walk in your door. This gives customers the confidence that they are not going to blow like $100 on something that they don't even keep- you know? Just say you are not satisfied with their product there is no out of pocket cost for you. I think it is smart of them. I know for me- 8 years ago in this industry I could have been a monkey with a clip board in the middle of the mall and could have done this job. "The game has changed" and this is honestly, since Cingular's Rollover roll-out, been the most unique way to draw p...
(continues)

Actually yeah, why would VZW have low morale, they are the most expensive company, yet have the lowest churn every quarter, and the highest revenue, and bring in the most customers just about every quarter, yet, they have low morale? lmao what a stupid post.

z34007 said:
Arigold,

I dont know where you got your business knowledge, but your wrong, wrong, wrong. Forget everything and just listen to schlittertex's Dad. He knows all.



Schlittertex,

When 1st quarter results are posted, what will you say if your wrong and there is not crisis? I'm sure someone on here will remind you when that time comes.


And last of all, why is this in the Cingular forum?

I'm terribly terribly apologetic, how on earth did I ever presume that business knowledge would win out over the opinion of this young mans father. How could I have been SO wrong?!

Like bkw...I am going to laugh so very hard when revenue/number reporting comes along and once again, for the umpte...
(continues)

Its funny, I shouldn't have posted, because I assumed too much out of the cell phone industry and its workers, to grasp that business is business across the board...my mistake...the cell phone industry is so freakin unique lol...maybe I should quit my day job in which I deal with equipment that costs twice as much as most of your cars do, to go deal with cell phones because the business practices in the cell phone industry is different and so unique lol.

I am sure they have different accounting practices, and their Balance sheet looks totally different and are set up totally different. So are their income statements. (Sarcasm for those who have trouble picking up on it)

But the title of the post is draw in the attention of the reader...
(continues)

Congrats on your working on equipment that costs twice as much as my vehicle does. Though I'd beg to differ.

In effect however, what you are saying is that the airline industry, the automobile industry and waste management should all be run in the exact same manner as the wireless industry?

Is that what I am understanding?

While Business principles may remain similiar across the board, its ridiculously presumptive to assume that all businesses should be run in the exact same manner.

Again, I ask what qualifies your aforementioned individuals to comment on the status of the economic vitality of Verizon wireless? They are making assumptions off the cuff, without numbers, stock pricing, revenue sourcing in front of them to make th...
(continues)

We are not assuming we know exactly what is going on, its just with a promotion like this it makes one wonder, does it not. Its not a mystery that Verizon's goal was to pass cingular on the number of Customers, was it not? Did they by the last quarter of 06, no. Could this be a ploy to try and boost those numbers, obviously yes, is that a little desperate if you are already "that good of a company" and ya'll can moan and groan and tell me how much I don't know about business, and that I "need to retake business101" (gag), but its not going to change that they still don't have the highest numbers of customers, yet.

and about your car/truck/SUV/sportscar that you may drive, yes the equipment we make at my location a lone will sell for ...
(continues)

Well I'm not making this a debate about ones intelligence. While I have pointed out I disagree with your conclusion, I'll make zero attempts to knock your intelligence. You obviously can make a coherent argument regardless of who agrees or disagrees.

Though I question this metaphor pertaining to cars/machinery. I don't think the value of my vehicle is in direct proportion to the job I hold. My income comes from various sources and shouldn't have even come into play into this argument. It really well frankly has no value in proving your point.

Don't even see why you're discussing your car value with the guy. It's ridiculous and doesn't mean a thing how much the equipment his company works with costs. Cell phone technicians work with cell phone towers which cost millions of dollars.

READ ALL THE POSTS! I was merely stating that because someone attacked my "business 101" skills, that is all, sorry I used cars as an example, next time I will use House, and will still get ostracized because people take things way to personal...

Its bad enough people totally missed the point I was trying to make...next time I make a post I won't do it on the cell industry because you people take it way too personal, as if the majority were actually running the company.

Notice I said majority, so no one could come back and say "blah blah blah, I am atually high up in the company, blah blah blah."

Thank you.

I did read all the posts. Nobody cares how much the equipment you work on/with costs. It has nothing to do with your business knowledge. Is a cell engineer more knowledgeable about business than someone who, say, owns a profitable restaurant simply b/c cell towers cost a lot more than food?

And I'm sorry, your post did not seem neutral. If you post something, especially something disparaging about another entity, be it business or person, you can expect a rebute. It's called a discussion. If you can ONLY have a discussion with people who agree with you, otherwise you get hurt, then your life is going to be very difficult. There are going to be few people in your life who agree with you 100%. When a person disagrees with you, regard...
(continues)

Yeah no kidding people are going to disagree with you otherwise what would be the point of a debate.

And also I can't be a total waste of human space and deal with the business dealings that go on with this type of equipment now can I. The implications of my company being late on an order trickle down to higher cost of fuel due to lack of rig production, well that and not to mention the EPAs strict restriction on refineries, also the perceived notion that Iran and its hostage taken should effect the price of gas when they important a good chunk of their fuel, which makes absolutely no sense, oh thats right, they are a poor country...

I digress, sorry for the rant lol.

But I have to have some sort of business since to be doing what I am doing with the equipment that we are dealing with, correct?

Well, the question is more of what you DO at the company rather than the COST of the equipment that you deal with. Cost is insignificant if what you do is repair equipment or hold a janitorial position. If you are in some sort of management position, and do WELL in your position, that's going to matter more. That was what my point is. A technician who fixes towers worth millions of dollars may know 0 about business, while the owner of a successfully run small restaurant is probably going to be very knowledgeable, even though the cost of food is much smaller.

I can attack your business skills because frankly, you don’t have any, or else you would have done the analysis on how much one pays on average per month, based on ARPU, and then see how long the average length of a contract is and then compute the mathematics. I did it for you. More importantly, you made a bold statement earlier saying something to the effect of that you don’t think this is a good business sense or practice without giving any rationale or analysis. I mean if you tried then I would say hey you have a good argument, but you didn’t even try, thus you business skills don’t exist.

I wasn't using it to bash so that I can say what business is better, I was saying that, and probably didn't make it clear enough, because someone attacked my basis by saying I needed to go back to "business 101" which I didn't appreciate because every day I deal with equipment that is worth a lot more than most peoples car. I wasn't attacking anyones income at all just to clear that up as well.

But the company I work for makes Equipment that ranges from the several thousands to several millions, so I am in no way business incompetent.

That is all.

You might be especially with making bold statements and cant back it up.

😎

schlittertex said:
But as for my dad, he has worked in every sector of the oil industry, not to mention in the computer industry, and software industry, and is also a CPA, and we were talking about this as well in the production meeting with some of the VPs that have kids in college (and some of the adds are directed towards college kids), and we got to talking about it, and they agreed it was also a stupid, desperate move...but what do they know, they work for a company that services 98 % of the worlds solids control needs when dealing with drill ships and jack up rigs, and other types of drill rigs, they wouldn't know anything as basic as the cell phone industry lol.

That is one crazy run on sentence. D...
(continues)

I am not anti anything, I am merely talking from a business perspective, that is all, I could care two chits about what company is better, I am happy with the phone and phone service I have, and I think its great and that is just my opinion.

I was merely looking at this in the realm of business, I think promotional stunts like these are ploys...and contrary to my title which was purely an attention grabber, I don't think the company is in trouble, I just think its Verizons grasping to surpass Cingular since they didn't do it last year.

I didn't know I was going against Cell Phone Dogma.

But thank you, at least someone has looked at it slightly neutral.

I agree with Tex. I think its because they aren't exactly where they wanted to be numbers wise.

We will see in just a few short days.

This doesn't look like a short term move like phone pricing. This is a policy change they are investing a lot of money into promoting. I don't think it is going away any time soon.

But I agree with you to an extent- there are only so many Nextel customers left looking to port out and only a few months before the iPhone... they may want to grab as many of those customers as possible in the next couple months.

Proof said:
But I agree with you to an extent- there are only so many Nextel customers left looking to port out and only a few months before the iPhone... they may want to grab as many of those customers as possible in the next couple months.

I second that thought.

i was not implying that VZ was better than anyone. what i was saying is that i do not think they are desperate b/c they have managed to sign up the most customers over the past two years. they are performing quite well financially. i think they trying to tighten the noose around the necks of everyone else. i think companies will always run gimmicks until they have microsoft like market share. just my two cents

I don't think so...the only thing cingular still has more customers in are prepaid services...as far as postpaid retail customers verizon is already on top. I feel that verizon is just trying to be the first to make a move before the others get to it. Like rollover and early nights. Verizon can't very well join in on that or then it would look like there were problems. But if they come up with something new, well thats just good for the consumers

"Verizon can't very well join in on that or then it would look like there were problems. But if they come up with something new, well thats just good for the consumers" - youareamoron

But coming up with something new, so that they don't copy some other company, but to produce the same results, isn't showing problems.

just curious that's all.

Well to come up with differentiators are a key metric for customers to come into the firm and to see whether or not the service and products that they are good. Verizon is obviously struggling in the prepaid and data markets and perhaps if they continue to offer these kinds of promotions that will change, but it is in the right step for them to become a differentiator in the marketplace. I actually think all the carriers should do it because many of the wireless companies say that they have the best network in some markets so why not offer the same thing that Verizon just did? I think it is great.