Well, it’s finally here. American Personal Communications, doing business under the Sprint name, has introduced personal communications services in the Washington, D.C., market.
Broadband PCS is a reality.
One small step for wireless, one giant leap for the future?
We’ll see. It sounds like the company has a solid approach for marketing to the masses-nice, shiny shrink-to-wrap boxes similar to those that house computer software and more importantly, no hand-tying year-long contracts with evil “If you happen to discontinue service” clauses.
Sprint Spectrum’s cheapest service costs $15 per month and includes 15 minutes of airtime. After those 15 minutes are used up, airtime charges run 31 cents per minute. A second service plan sounds similar to cellular’s low-tier service plan-$25 per month including 30 minutes of airtime, with additional airtime charges of 31 cents per minute during peak hours and 10 cents per minute during off-peak hours.
A potential problem for APC, however, is handset prices, which are running between $100 and $200. It will be difficult to compete with cellular phones that generally cost a penny for the older ones and under $50 for better-looking ones.
A savvy sales force will be needed to explain the benefits of paying $200 for a phone and not being tied to a service contract vs. a penny for a phone, which comes with a year-long obligation.
PCS phones will probably find a nice niche as birthday or other celebratory presents.
I’ll have to admit, I’ve never understood giving cellular phones as gifts. Does the gift-giver pay the year-long contract, or only the cost of the phone? (Nice gift-you really splurged on that $30 phone. Thanks for tying me to a $300 yearly contract.) Or do people actually give the $300 toward phone use as a present and trust the receiver is going to use the money for the service and not something else?
PCS phones make a little more gift-giving sense. People are always looking for nice gifts to give to significant others that aren’t too cheap, yet not too expensive; that are nifty yet functional. And a PCS phone only obligates the receiver to $15 a month.
(I still don’t see parents giving this gift to children because a mere 15 minutes of airtime would be used on the first call. Guess who then gets stuck paying the bill for the rest of the month!)
Regardless of whether PCS will actually become wireless service for the masses, the government seems to have achieved at least one of its goals in setting aside spectrum for the service-there already is immediate competition between cellular and PCS operators.
Sprint Spectrum began running TV, radio and print advertisements last week, and has opened three stores in Washington.
Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile, which operates in the D.C. area, placed a full page ad in a Washington newspaper touting its service. And BANM spokesman Steve Fleisher is quick to say, “There is nothing magic in our competitor’s list of offerings that Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile does not or cannot provide today.”
Let the games begin!
