LOS ANGELES-The average cellular phone user saw a drop of 6.9 percent last year in the cost of their wireless airtime, while high-end users-those with 600 minutes per month-paid 10.1 percent less, according to the latest survey from economic research and consulting firm Econ One.
The survey, which covered 25 major cities and four typical airtime plans-30, 150, 300 and 600 minutes per month-from December 1999 to December 2000, found average costs dropped from $42.53 to $39.60. Users with 600 minutes per month saw their bills drop from $66.63 to $59.91.
Cell-phone users with less costly plans saw more gradual decreases-those with 30 minutes per month had a 1.9 percent drop in cost.
“Wireless costs over 2000 demonstrated similar movement to those we found in our earlier period survey-downward,” said Charles Mahla, Econ One’s senior economist. “And like our previous period-to-period trend analysis, high-end consumers seem to have benefited most, with costs falling more than 10 percent over 2000.”
Of the cities surveyed, St. Louis, Dallas and Kansas City had the largest declines in costs, falling 18.2, 15.6 and 14.4 percent respectively. At the other end, Sacramento, Calif., had a 4-percent increase in airtime costs, followed by San Diego with 2.8 percent and Philadelphia at 2.3 percent.
