Many People Ready To Go Mobile Only, Maybe

from the can-you-hear-me-here? dept

LetsTalk (who is hardly an unbiased party) has come out with a study showing that, if coverage were a little better and prices were a little lower, a large percentage of people would be willing to ditch their landlines for mobile phones. Basically, what they're saying is "if my mobile phone works as well as my home phone, sure I'd ditch my landline." This isn't all that surprising, though, the folks behind the study obviously want to make it seem like it's big news. The more interesting aspect of the study may be the footnote in the article claiming that not too many people are interested in wireless broadband. The study found that only 8% said they wanted wireless broadband, which is probably meaningless. It's a situation where they're first talking to people about their mobile phones, and then switching gears and asking about wireless broadband. Many people, in that context, will respond negatively -- thinking that they don't need broadband on their mobile phone. However, the power of wireless broadband has very little to do with mobile phones. It's also a technology that most people have little experience with, and those are the types of technologies where asking people if they want them beforehand will give you a very different response than if you actually offer the technology and see how people use it. In the end, what will drive wireless broadband usage isn't "wireless broadband," but the applications that make wireless broadband valuable. This study didn't ask about that.
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  1. identicon
    dorpus, 24 Jun 2004 @ 12:45pm

    POTS still has better international rates

    Cell phone carriers all charge $1-$2/minute for international calls to Japan, while POTS charges in the 10-25 cent/min range. I won't be ditching my land line any time soon.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2004 @ 12:51pm

    No Subject Given

    Landline ?
    What's that ?
    I got rid of mine years ago.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2004 @ 2:05pm

    Re: POTS still has better international rates

    you can get internet calling cards where the rates of international phone calls are about the same as POTS rates. I would recommend checking out idphonecard.com they have very reasonable rates.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    dorpus, 24 Jun 2004 @ 2:11pm

    Re: POTS still has better international rates

    Thing is,

    1. A lot of those vendors are sleazy
    2. The reception is bad
    3. I would get charged minutes on my cell phone plan anyway.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Permanent4, 24 Jun 2004 @ 2:33pm

    Re: POTS still has better international rates

    I would get charged minutes on my cell phone plan anyway.

    Do you make most of your international calls during peak time?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    dorpus, 24 Jun 2004 @ 2:41pm

    Re: POTS still has better international rates

    I have to make the calls in the evenings because of the time difference.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Matt, 24 Jun 2004 @ 4:20pm

    Been there, Done that

    Once I was able to get high-speed cable internet, my landline went bye-bye. Before, I only kept POTS because all I could get was DSL. Now, with my cell phone, I get unlimited local minutes and 500 minutes long-distance every month for a little over 40.00, so it doesn't make sense to keep a landline when I have to have a cell phone anyway.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2004 @ 4:35pm

    Wireless broadband

    I want wireless broadband and VOIP. Then I don't need a mobile phone.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    mark, 10 Mar 2005 @ 2:36am

    shout up

    shoutmup

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    mark, 10 Mar 2005 @ 2:37am

    shout up


    link to this | view in thread ]


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