Small wireless carriers want to offer their customers
the same advanced services the big companies offer theirs. But since the
economics of innovation are less favorable for small companies, it is difficult
for them to keep pace with the big carriers in deploying advanced services.
As the next generation of wireless services is rolled out, this is troubling
for smaller companies like First Cellular of Southern Illinois. Troubling as
this is for us, it is not just our concern. It should be troubling for big
carriers too, because of the implications for their own customers. Because of
the expanding national marketplace, wherever wireless customers travel, users
want and expect to find the same services they have grown to depend on wherever
they are.
More than 50 percent of America’s coverage area, including Alaska,
is served by approximately 150 small carriers, according to the Rural Cellular
Association, yet wireless has now become a truly national market. The big
companies market products and services as a national product, and American
consumers have learned to use wireless wherever and whenever they want. They use
voice services that way, and they will expect to use advanced services that
way.
Customers don’t always differentiate your service from a roaming partner.
They have your phone, they get your bill and, in most cases, they are unclear
about where service boundaries are and what changes to expect when crossing
those boundaries.
The big carriers have a clear and vested interest in the
smaller companies delivering broadband and advanced services sooner rather than
later.
Cingular is demonstrating such an approach by making it easier for
small companies to invest in the equipment and other elements necessary to
provide advanced services. In a recent request for proposal to UMTS equipment
manufacturers, Cingular asked the vendors to sell these elements to rural
carrier partners at the same price it pays-a huge savings for small carriers.
Earlier, Cingular had offered similar pricing considerations to several rural
carriers making a conversion from TDMA to GSM/GPRS technology.
This makes for
a promising partnership. It is an approach that all big carriers could follow,
for their own interests and those of the whole industry. The network is the only
real product we sell. If we work together to deploy a nationwide broadband
network more quickly and efficiently, everybody benefits.
Cingular is
demonstrating a way to make this happen sooner rather than later. This is a plus
for its own customers, our customers in rural Southern Illinois, industry and
the economy.
Terry Addington is a member of the board of the Rural Cellular
Association and president of First Cellular of Southern Illinois.
