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.

10 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    POTS still has better international rates

    identicon
    dorpus, Jun 24th, 2004 @ 12:45pm

    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.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    No Subject Given

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

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

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: POTS still has better international rates

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

    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.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: POTS still has better international rates

    identicon
    dorpus, Jun 24th, 2004 @ 2:11pm

    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.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re: POTS still has better international rates

    identicon
    Permanent4, Jun 24th, 2004 @ 2:33pm

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

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

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    Re: POTS still has better international rates

    identicon
    dorpus, Jun 24th, 2004 @ 2:41pm

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

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  

    Been there, Done that

    identicon
    Matt, Jun 24th, 2004 @ 4:20pm

    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.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  

    Wireless broadband

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

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

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  

    shout up

    identicon
    mark, Mar 10th, 2005 @ 2:36am

    shoutmup

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  10.  

    shout up

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


    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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