SC> -GE> I've been avoiding making a commercial plug, but I AM an
SC> -GE> agent for Bell
SC> -GE> Atlantic NYNEX Mobile.
SC> I'm just a cellular nut, sold cellular in the past, may do it again if I 

SC> get an agent line out of the deal. In this market BANM doesn't limit 
heir
SC> agent lines. Cell One Boston agent lines are limited to a measly 1000 
inu
SC> plus you have to pay your own LL charges.
Here in the Pittsburgh region, we only get 250 peak and 60 off-peak
minutes on our demo lines.
SC> I call them "Balls Atlantic" because they've really started getting 
ggres
SC> in this market. I like what I see. They want business and they're going 
f
SC> it. Cellular One appears to be sitting around in a state of disbeleif, 
ul
SC> by years of Nynex doing nothing.
BANM has gotten very aggressive in the Pittsburgh region as well. It's
very rare that I can't show a subscriber to AT&T Wireless (the Cellular
One franchisee here) a savings of at least 20% when they switch
carriers. The problem I usually face is that even though AT&T's
published prices aren't as good as BANM's, AT&T will through in all
sorts of bonuses and incentives to keep customers. I showed one
AT&T subscriber a savings of over $16,000 over two years to switch, and
AT&T turned around and flat out GAVE them a $7,000 credit to wait for
six months before the considered switching.
The practice that really burns my butt is what usually happens when I
show an AT&T customer the chance to save major amounts of money thanks
to a limited time BANM promotion. The customer will go to AT&T for a
counter offer, and they will drag their feet in getting back to the
customer until the BANM promotion is over. Then the customer ends up
stuck with AT&T. I offered a local radio station with 25 AT&T lines a
conversion package that would have saved them almost $10,000 per year,
but the offer expired on the last day of the month when the special
promotion ended. AT&T waited until 5:00 PM on Friday, the 31st to make
their counter offer, and it wasn't as good as what I was offering. But
it came too late for the radio station to make the changeover until the
next Monday when I couldn't offer the incentives.
SC> In the NorthEast Super Region as they call it, they're testing a plan 
ith
SC> unlimited offpeak for $29.98 a month. Great deal, no LL charge, the calls
SC> really are free. I hope they adopt it as a feature than can be added to 
n
SC> their plans.
Down here, we just ended a promotion for unlimited off-peak. But since
I concentrate on business accounts, that's not as big an incentive as
the new aggregate billing plans. With them, the customer gets X free
minutes per line, but the minutes are pooled among all the phones. That
way the customer never pays for unused minutes on one line while they
have unused minutes on another line. We can even offer an aggregate
billing plan to individuals who want two cell phone lines.
SC> Our Motorola TX400 is a good performer, 3 watts, battery, and hands free. 
SC> hands free picks up a lot of noise where the Diamondtel is amazingly 
uiet
SC> Last month the TX400 got around 1100 minutes of use, low compared to the 

SC> 6000 on the 92 but enough to convince me that it's a good phone and that 

SC> probably keep it. I wonder if you know of a way of lowering the 
ensitivit
SC> the HF system, it's so loud at times that it's very annoying to the poor 

SC> we're talking to on the other end. On the handset the audio on the TX400 

SC> impressive, very clear, and because BANM uses Omni rather than sectorized 
SC> are a lot few handoffs so the calls sound great. I'm impressed.
Sorry, but while my level of expertise on cellular rates is very high,
on technical stuff I defer to the our techies. They have forgetten more
than I'll ever know.
SC> -GE> However, the Qualcomm hybrid digital/analog phone we talked
SC> -GE> about
SC> -GE> earlier looks very impressive and sounds great, if only the
SC> -GE> price would
SC> -GE> come down. $500 (with activation) is a wee bit pricy.
SC> Wow, that is expensive, holy cow, been a long time since cellular phones 

SC> that pricey.
Yeah. But it's being test marketed in some regions for only $200. I'm
confident that it will soon drop for our region. For know, I am
concentrating on selling our Analog PCS phone. It an Audiovox MVX465. It
comes with a long-life nickle metal-hydride battery (22 hours stnadby or
5 hours talk time). Best of all, it has incoming caller ID and voice
mail indicator, just like the digital phones, yet it sells for only
$9.95 with activation. The only PCS feature it lacks is Short Message
Service, which hasn't bothered a single customer (yet). I haven't talked
to anyone, including Sprint PCS salesmen, who has any level of
enthusiasm for the text messaging feature.
 * OLX 2.1 TD * Just cause I'm on a diet don't mean I can't read a menu
--- Retorn
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