The Iphone World

Posts Tagged ‘Carrier’

The new Google Nexus One is more than a new smart phone, it is a new way of buying smart phones.  Traditionally, to date, people had to go to a service provider, likeTelus , Bell Mobility or Rogers Communications and buy the phones that the carriers provided;  you buy the service, and the phone comes with it, usually for free or a greatly reduced price.  A 0 smart phone can be bought in many places for to 0, as long as you sign up to a 3-year service contract plan.  With the new Nexus One Network, you can now buy the phone and look for service second.

The Nexus One smart phone is run on the  Android 2.1 platform, introduced in early 2010 with the Motorola Devour.  Picture the Google/Motorola Droid, and then picture the advanced and upgraded model, and you have the Nexus One.  There is an unlocked version of the Nexus One available through the Google Apps Store, and it is presently selling at 9 USD.    Add a plan, or take it as a pay-as-you-go phone, the choice is yours.  If one cell phone service provider has a better and less expensive, all-inclusive plan with no hidden or connection fees, then you can choose the carrier and plan that suits you best.

The phone itself, the Nexus One smart phone, has a modern voice-recognition software included, for accessing and dictating emails.  Voice-activated searching is also available, so you will not have to tap, tap, tap, and search your apps for the right one, just name it and it is activated.  The voice activation comes with noise-cancelling software, so that you do not have to find a really quiet place to use your voice activation services.

The only problem that some people see with this sort of purchasing is that they do not get the initial price reduction for the smart phone.  However, once a two-year or 3-year plan has been completed, you have more than paid for the phone, through the service fees and high plan prices.  With the new Nexus One, and a plethora of new smart phones on the way that will revolutionize the smart phone purchasing industry, the way people buy smart phones is about to change.

The Nexus One smart phone is the snowball at the top of the mountain that starts an avalanche, and the Nexus One Network, under the Google Apps Store umbrella, is the avalanche.  The victims just may be the IPhone, Blackberry and other, non-Android run smart phones.  With the Android 2.1 platform released with the Devour, the Nexus One will benefit from the upgraded version of what was already better than the Blackberry service and available applications.  And the way that people buy the smart phones is whatGoogle is
trying to change with the introduction of the Nexus One smart phone.

Yes, you can run the Nexus One smart phone on the Nexus One network, and it will work splendidly.  But, if you purchase the Nexus One smart phone through theGoogle Apps Store, you get to decide which carrier that supports the smart phone would be best, and cheapest for you.

The American carrier Mobile One currently offers the Nexus One smart phone for 9, on a 3-year service plan.  However, for 9 US, you can pick your service provider and plan, and even use the smart phone with a pay-as-you-go plan, for people who want to limit their
expenses on the phones.However, Google is trying to entice all smart phone carriers into it’s revolutionary smart phone business, with customers buying the phones at retail prices, and then choosing the carrier and plan that best suits them.  This is one business plan that has serious potential to make a huge inroad into the cell phone service and sales industries.

So, give it a try.  With a 90-day satisfaction guarantee, there really is no risk.  If you don’t like the plan that you took out after buying your Nexus One smart phone, then you can change that too, within the guarantee time frame.  Sleek-looking, stylish, powerful and fast, the Nexus One is the next step in garneringGoogle as one of the hottest smart phone providers.

In recent years, cell phone usage has sky rocketed. Consumer reviews and tech columnists have devoted volumes to the subject of which phone to choose. The loyal followers of the iPhone, the Blackberry, the Palm, the Sidekick, ect, have engaged in fiery online debates over which one is better.
Relatively little has been written, however, on comparing cell phone carriers. To a considerable extent, a cell phone is only as good as the carrier that provides the signal. We’ll see here that evaluating carriers and their monthly plans is every bit as involved as reviewing the cell phones they run on.
J.D.Power and Associates have reported that the quality of *all* cell phone services has become so consistently high across the board that there was no longer a reason to even own a “land line” anymore. Paradoxically, ask any of your friends about cell phone reception horror stories and they’ll have plenty of fireside tales to tell you. J.D. Power and Associates also asserts that call carrier customers who did not have their complaints resolved by customer service were six times more likely to switch carriers. And in fact, this happens all the time. If one isn’t satisfied with one’s cell phone, it’s easy enough to get another one. But dropping a cell phone carrier is another matter. The advent of phone carrier contracts with cancellation penalty fees has largely come about to combat cell phone carrier dissatisfaction. Even the advent of 3G Networks, which was announced with great fanfare, still has not quelled a considerable percentage of cell phone customers that are not happy with their carriers. According to comScore Networks, one in four cell phone customers are not satisfied with their wireless carrier. With such an astonishingly large statistic, it’s clear that cell phone signal technology is still in its adolescence. Keeping this in mind, let’s now compare carriers.
According to comScore, Verizon Wireless has consistently been rated the best carrier in terms of coverage and customer service. Overall, only six percent of customers break their service contract.
AT&T/Cingular come in second, just behind Verizon. Alltel’s customer service contract breakers are more numerous, coming in at 9 percent, while Sprint/Nextel have an even higher dissatisfaction rating at 11 percent. At the bottom of the heap is T-Mobile, with 15% of customers wanting to break out of contract obligations.
But there might be more to this than meets the eye. The above comScore survey is not location specific and uses the percentage of customers breaking the service contract as the litmus test for popularity. A J.D. Power and Associates survey does indeed confirm Verizon as the leader, but mentions that this is particularly true in the Northeast, where Verizon’s coverage is the strongest. T-Mobile, with the lowest rating in the comScore survey, actually ranked first in the Southwest, according to J.D. Power. Moreover, Verizon also ranks lower in terms of the phones that run its service, which tend to use CDMA technology rather than GSM. As a result, Verizon phones tend to not accept SIM cards (Subscriber Identity Modules) which prevents their use when travelling overseas. Verizon’s rates also ranked considerably higher than its rivals, and though its customer service gets high marks, its bills tend to be confusing to read.
J.D. Powers also claims that Sprint has a strong popularity in the Southwest, yet at the same time it concedes that Sprint also ranks lowest in call quality. The latter statistic was also confirmed by a PC Magazine survey. By contrast, PC Magazine ranks T-Mobile as the best carrier in terms of pricing, and second only to Alltel in service plan options. T-Mobile also offers its service on a wide variety of phones and smartphones with GSM/SIM card compatibility enabling international use.
Prepaid cell phones deserve their own category all together. Virgin Mobile won the highest marks, just ahead of TracFone and T-Mobile respectively. Verizon, ATT&T, follow in order of decreasing popularity, with poor Sprint/ Nextel once again at the bottom of the heap.
Oftentimes people let their choice of service providers be determined by what phone they choose. Let me suggest that you might just as easily consider the reverse route; find the best carrier for your needs and chose your phone from there.