In Choosing a Wireless Carrier Partner, consider doing these 2 Smart Steps
With thousands of possible wireless plan combinations wireless carriers can offer to millions of subscribers, still the decision of consumers on which plan to choose oftentimes ended up with a coin flip or a dice roll.
A three-quarter financial comparison review of four major U.S. wireless carriers, published by Forbes on December of last year, revealed various insights on the state of wireless plan subscription in 2014.
In terms of revenue, Verizon earned $54.4 B, AT&T with $46 B, Sprint with $21.2 B and T-Mobile with $16.5 B. In terms of total postpaid subscribers, Verizon have 110.1 M, AT&T with 75.1 M, Sprint with 29.9 M, and T-Mobile with 25.9 M.
Noticeably, AT&T has more wireless subscribers than Verizon, the former with 118.7 M and the latter with 106.2 M. When it comes to postpaid subscribers addition, T-mobile got 3.6 M while Verizon only got 3.5 M.
These figures mean a lot especially to businesses that are direct stakeholders of these mobile network operators. Smartphones and tablets OEMs, for example, can either renew or drop their contracts with a player base on its market performance. Google’s plan to use Sprint and T-mobile wireless networks this 2015 and become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) is an obvious result of the nitty-gritty business of wireless communications. This bold move of Google is seen to create huge competition among wireless carriers, smartphone OEMs and MVNOs. This is considering that Apple is an OEM with the biggest smartphone market share in the US while Google holds the largest smartphone OS market share worldwide.
As a wireless carrier subscriber, intense competition and aggressive price wars among major players can have both advantages and disadvantages on your part. Competition, as what most market analysts agree with, benefits consumers in terms of pricing – an advantage. In effect, a wireless carrier that can attract more postpaid subscribers because of better pricing scheme may face network traffic congestions – a disadvantage. So the question now is: how are you going to weigh these possibilities?
In my short but in-depth reviews of various reports covering wireless carriers, I arrived on these two most important actions to take when choosing a wireless carrier partner. Practically, you can choose more than one partner if you have the capacity – say you’re inclined to a business that requires nationwide coverage. However, you can also choose none – say the quality of service of the VoIP app on your PC is enough to get you going on your daily job. Whatever the case maybe, here are the smart things to do.
In choosing the right subscription plan
There are two basic types of subscription plan offered by U.S. wireless carriers: single-line (or individual plan) and four-line (or family plan). It’s easy to decide which of these plans is to choose. Why? Because of easy-to-use plan builder tools, choosing which device, how many devices and what data access plan to avail is just like ordering pizza online.
The smartest way in choosing the right plan starts with understanding how this plan builder works. Do not be fooled by attractive add-ons or “wow-able” strikethroughs on prices. Look into those sentences in tiny fonts as there are hidden fees right there. When shopping for a plan, other than your love for the device, also consider the device’s connectivity features and overall performance when used with a wireless carrier. You have to do your homework on that.
In knowing the carrier with the best network coverage
This is the easiest thing to do but also the task that is more prone to errors. Yes, finding a map that shows 4G LTE coverage is no brainer. But knowing exactly if a location has two thumbs up reception or none is where most people get trapped into. No wireless carrier has perfect network coverage, trust me. Your data speed can be good inside the office but not in the meeting room. And if we talk about network coverage in rural areas, all I can say is good luck.
Again, this is about doing your homework. Research and do actual testings of network performance of the major wireless carriers in your area. According to a test conducted by ROOTMeterics in the second half of 2014, in terms of reliability, speed, data, call quality and text messages overall performance, Verizon is the king. T-mobile is just a pawn.
In this regard, I would like to end this post with this question: Would choose Verizon?
