MikeBinOK

When Choosing a Carrier, Does the iPhone Really Matter? | Nielsen Wire

Nielsen (Yep, the tv people) recently did some polling, and found that the top four issues people consider when choosing wireless service all revolve around money. In short, they are Price, availability of a family plan, availability of pre-paid, and free in-network calling. Quality of network sneaks in at number five, and availability of a specific phone (such as the Pre) is way down at number seven! For choosing wireless, it seems it is all about the Benjamins (or at least about the Alexander Hamiltons).

This isn't good news for the Pre! The ads trying to differentiate it from the iPhone and others may be barking up the wrong tree. As for Sprint offering the Pre, the price advantages discussed elsewhere of their plans may be an advantage, but I haven't seen them tout that much in their marketing.

I learned about this study in a New York Times blog post here:

What Do Cellphone Users Want Most? Cheap Service - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

See the August 10, 4:44 PM entry. This examines the data a little more, and suggests that people drawn to different networks may have different motivations--For instance a substantial fraction of the new ATT subscribers _WERE_ in fact drawn by the iPhone, and a significant fraction of new Verizon subscribers were drawn by network quality. A VP of Nielsen interviewed for the blog post agreed that Sprint was in a tough spot in competing.

I think this is relevant for this forum, not only because it is interesting, but because I want the Pre to be a success so that there will be a good supply of apps for it, and so that Palm has the money to continue developing the new product and OS.

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Mike B in OKlahoma

Palm V-->Palm Vx-->Palm m505-->Garmin iQue3600-->Treo 650-->Treo 755p-->Palm Pre



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bluemoon219

Thanks for sharing-

I had AT&T service for years (through the Cingular purchase and back to AT&T) anyway-I began to notice that my bill was way to high for the dropped calls on the East Coast. I was also using the Motorola Q.

I begin to review other carriers and picked Sprint because of cost- it was after I determined a carrier that I picked my phone. While I love the Pre- if Verizon was cheaper I would have gone there and purchased a RIM.