Mobile Working Experiences

I recently noticed that the mobile phone portion of my broadband, tv + fixed line bill was steadily creeping up from the £20-£30 I had been used to up to £60 and in one month £80. It got me thinking that maybe I was not on the best tariff (the standard SIM-only £10 per month). One quick and painless call to my operator and it turned out that as most of my calls were either to landlines or off-net it made a lot of sense to take a £15 per month deal which has subsequently halved my bills. It started me thinking - who is responsible for working out what tariff we should be on - the customer or the network?

I was further reminded of this when having dinner with a friend recently - a long term customer and fan of his mobile network, he travels a lot for work and spends £100 - £150 per month for his mobile, he freely admitted that he never checks his bill but has noticed his direct debit has been steadily increasing as had his travelling - had he ever tried calling his operator to see if a better deal was available? no, 'has not got the time, too much hassle and surely they would tell me if I could do better?'

err.. no, why would an operator actively seek to reduce a customer's bill and hence reduce their value to the network? he argued that he would be more likely to stay with his network as a result - hmmm... he has already been with them for many years - and is probably safely labelled in some database as a 'barnacle', 'cash cow', 'loyal lover' or some such descriptor... signifying that he can be relied on as a steady flow of income. He further argued that if his network made the effort to call him he would be more likely to become an advocate for them - boring his friends with stories of how much he loved his network. On this point I was forced to concede that that is a positive, given that every survey I read points to word of mouth being the best form of promotion. Surely for this reason alone networks would do well to make proactive healthcheck calls to customers who could be on a better tariff....

I reflected further that the only time my last network ever called me was the day after I requested a code so that I could port my number to my new network - asking me to re-consider my decision - err... 'sorry but that is a bit late in the day', I already had my new phone, new contract and was very happy thank you very much, and this belated call has just reminded me why it was time for a change!!

so has anyone had similar experiences? am I being unfair in my judgement of the mobile networks? am I asking too much of them?

The French consumer watchdog has ruled that Orange must terminate its exclusive distribution deal with Apple for the iPhone.

Originally due to last 5 years, the contract must cease within 3 months, less than 1 year after launch. This will be a blow for Orange and is likely to impact on revenues as the monopoly is revoked. The watchdog claimed the deal was holding back growth in smartphone sales in France and was anti-competitive.

It leaves the door open for further challenges in the UK - could O2's hold over the iPhone be challenged in a similar manner? The iPhone has been very successful and still (IMHO) lacks a competent competitor in the touchscreen smartphone space. Analysts view that the iPhone has given O2 access to a highly lucrative segment of customers most of whom have signed up to 2 year deals.

So the legal depts at UK operators will be sharpening their teeth?

The picture may not be so clear for a number of reasons - 1) the watchdog highlighted that the decision had been based on the structure of the French market which is less competitive than other countries, 2) Vodafone tried and failed to challenge the deal in Germany 3) the French are notrious for their anti-monopolgy stance and finally how many customers have chosen their own network by unlocking their SIM after purchase?

Watch this space - their may be another twist to the iPhone story....

How many small businesses have found that it is beneficial to sign up to one of the business tariffs offered by the main operators as opposed to sticking to using your personal tariff? what advice have you received?

And when your contract period expires - how many people are happy to remain out of contract? you miss out on the latest upgrade but it means you can switch at anytime.... any thoughts?

I am increasingly convinced that a lot of small businesses could save a load of cash by managing their mobiles differently - but I am not sure that the operators are actively promoting where you could save money (after all - why reduce their income from a good customer!)

Anyone got any tips for how to manage mobiles if you run your own small business?

Vodafone were demo-ing early models of the Blackberry Storm in their HQ today - so I took a few minutes to check out what all the fuss is about. I should say upfront that I am already a Blackberry fan and owner of a BB Curve.

First off - it is thicker and heavier that the iPhone, and will probably cause a few creases in the frequent flyers suit line.

For controls - it uses the familiar 4 button layout standard to the Blackberry range. But the feature I was most curious to try out is the Click-through screen. Contrary to my expectations, RIM seem to have pulled off a coup here, it is very intuitive to use and a big improvement on the touch screen typing experience. It has a tactile feel, requiring just the right amount of pressure to depress and responding with a satisfying click.

And the click through screen is a critical feature because the screen is noticeably smaller than other touchscreens, hence the keyboard is more compact. To further minimise the mis-typing problems common to most touchscreen keyboards, RIM have designed the keyboard to 'glow' around the location of your finger before you depress the screen. The theory being that you can see what key you are about to press before applying pressure to the screen, the only trade off being is that it slows the typing process. Based on 5 minutes use I made slighty more mistakes than I would typically make on my Blackberry Curve but after more practice I reckon the error rate would be similar. The bottom line - still not suitable for sending a long email but ideal for shorter, quick fire responses.

On my Curve I have found the web browser experience to be a major let down - clunky and virtually unusable, my only internet use has been via the various widgets I have downloaded. The new browser on the Storm is light years ahead and fully HTML enabled. However it is still not as good as the iPhone's Safari experience and I could not help noticing that any embedded script would slow down page rate considerably. The Storm does have the gravity sensor to ensure that the screen rotates smoothly according to how it is being held, but it lacks the finger controlled zoom in/out function of the iPhone.

On a brief inspection, the O/S seems to work well - a nice clean white on black menu. As with other Blackberrys, some menu functions are accessed via the logo button - a feature that I have always found to be counter-intuitive. The camera has been upgraded to 3 MP - but this is clearly not designed to be a lead feature. The side controls (never popular on other BBs) have been simplified to a volume control.

From a business perspective - this launch is a major play for Vodafone - they have secured exclusive UK operator rights for the lifetime of the device (it was developed by RIM in conjunction with Vodafone). The iPhone has been surprisingly popular with business users, and this is a clear step to up the stakes. It will benefit from the large Blackberry user base who may prefer to stick with an OS that they are familiar with. However, there are no concrete pricing or release dates yet - if anyone has any insight on this I would be very curious...

With the recent spate of touchscreen device launches the market looks set for intensive competition over the next 12-24 months...

Sobering story in the Times yesterday about how major manufacturing companies are cutting back on overtime and 4 day weeks to respond to falling demand...

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4860551.ece

Story also mentions how smaller supplier companies are being affected as a result - they are seeing declines in orders for the components they manfuacture. This is the first clear evidence I have seen of the trickle down effect....

So what does this mean for the tech sector? are projects being cancelled as companies cut back? are businesses delaying upgrades to hardware / software? are service deals being reviewed to get better value?

We have put a freeze on any non-essential IT purchases for 6 months as a pre-emptive measure but without any direct evidence of slowing revenues - anymore examples?