Any obvious negatives other than a smaller coverage area?
They're offering unlimited EVERYTHING, phone, messaging and web all for $45 a month! Or just unlimited phone for $30 a month!
When I was in NC I checked them out but they weren't available in WI. Now I see TV ads running, it appears they'll be here in WI on November 18'th.
That's a huge savings every year, I may have to look into them when my contract with you guys is up.
But I was curious if you had any inside scoop on them. You know, maybe buzz around you company about how they're managing to offer such a low price and if they can maintain it?
Cricket Wireless is all over this area, but they have a very small share of the market. Mostly they are marketing to the 18-25 set that does not have much in the way of a credit history. At least that is the case in this area.
To the best of my knowledge, the reason that they are able to offer the price plans that they have is because they are what we call a "reseller". In otherwords, they do not actually own their own network. They purchase access in bulk from other carriers and sell it to customers under their own brand name. If you have their service, you would more than likely be riding the AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint network though your bill, customer care, and operator services would all be Cricket branded. It is a fairly common arrangement among the smaller service providers. Amusingly enough, there is a particular service provider out there who has several times received higher marks on their network quality than Sprint does, but they in fact use our network exclusively.
I've not heard a lot about their business operations. I have heard some complaints about how they manage their prepaid services in certain areas, but we actually don't hear a lot about them since they are not one of our major competitors.
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MM
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
Hehehe... Actually you really could start Riggs Wireless if you had the capital to invest.
The major carriers all have a lot of overhead to pay for that resellers do not. We all have our own networks which are multi-million dollar ventures by themselves if you consider the cost of the switching equipment, the means of transmission (fiber optic cable, satellite, standard coaxial cable, copper cable, etc), real estate costs, electricity to run all that gear, personnel to build, monitor, and maintain the equipment and software, access fees to other carriers to be able to communicate with their networks, all of the back office systems to manage the equipment and the access, customer database, billing... the list goes on and on.
In reseller world, basically they only incur costs for what we consider "back office"... the customer database, their billing system and so forth plus whatever bulk rate they get for the time they buy on whatever network they use. Just like with a lot of other things, it is less expensive to buy in bulk.
Why do the big carriers do this? Simple... we still make money off of that access. Their customers are effectively our customers but we don't have to incur the cost for marketing to them, maintaining their accounts, collecting from them and so forth.
__________________
MM
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
You get the sale without the hassle of finding the customer or dealing with the relations.
Although I would still think there must be some concern about cannibalizing your own user base. But I'm sure Dan crunched the numbers and knows what he's doing.
Thanks for the info. Since there's no contract with them I think I'll give em' a shot when my two year deal is over. If I don't like em' nothing's really lost.
You would be surprised how many rural phone companies are run out of peoples barns or garages! Not kidding... and they are usually a nightmare to deal with.
__________________
MM
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
Reselling has been an industry practice for many years. Usually the tier 1 carriers don't worry too much about losing the customer base as the majority of the customers we lose are not the customer base we really want to retain. You of course would be an exception to that and we will likely work hard to try to keep your business. In the long run, we also get a lot of those customers back anyway because the resellers don't always stay in business and while they have cheaper rates, don't offer good customer care or the services that the tier 1 providers do.
__________________
MM
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
Reselling has been an industry practice for many years. Usually the tier 1 carriers don't worry too much about losing the customer base as the majority of the customers we lose are not the customer base we really want to retain. You of course would be an exception to that and we will likely work hard to try to keep your business. In the long run, we also get a lot of those customers back anyway because the resellers don't always stay in business and while they have cheaper rates, don't offer good customer care or the services that the tier 1 providers do.
Reselling has been an industry practice for many years. Usually the tier 1 carriers don't worry too much about losing the customer base as the majority of the customers we lose are not the customer base we really want to retain. You of course would be an exception to that and we will likely work hard to try to keep your business. In the long run, we also get a lot of those customers back anyway because the resellers don't always stay in business and while they have cheaper rates, don't offer good customer care or the services that the tier 1 providers do.
Oh, YOU'RE GOOD!
Just call me Edwina Haskell. By the way, that is a lovely frock you are wearing today.
__________________
MM
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
