Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Cell phone, PSTN or VoIP phone?

Have you read the "Annual FCC Report" that "Concludes U.S. Wireless Marketplace is Competitive and Consumer-Friendly"?

On Feb 5, 2008, "CTIA-The Wireless Association(R)President and CEO, Steve Largent,"
... "hailed the latest findings from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the Twelfth Annual Commercial Mobile Radio Service (CMRS) Competition Report released" on Feb 4, 2008. "The report demonstrates that the competitive U.S. wireless marketplace continues to offer consumers more choices and better services at lower prices."

Some of the stats that grab you:
"-- Approximately 280 million people, or 99.8 percent of the U.S. population, have one or more different operators offering mobile telephone service in the census blocks in which they live.

-- More than 95 percent of the U.S. population lives in areas with at least three mobile telephone operators competing to offer service.

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-- More than half of the U.S. population lives in areas with at least five competing mobile telephone operators.

-- Approximately 99.3 percent of the U.S. population living in rural counties, or 60.6 million people, have one or more different operators offering mobile telephone service in the census blocks within the rural counties in which they live.

-- Approximately 82 percent of the U.S. population lives in census blocks with at least one mobile broadband provider offering service."

CTIA Wireless 2008's conference and expo will be in Las Vegas on April 1-3, 2008. We've all heard of Fring, Truphone, MobileMax, and Surf? This is a must attend event to find out how everyone is leveraging the wireless market, to see how you can get in the action.

Out of 50 friends I asked about their telephony habits in the Pensacola, Florida area, all have a cell phone.
1. 14 have a cell phone only
2. 12 of the 36 left use a VoIP wired phone.
3. Of the 24 left, 10 are thinking about dropping their PSTN phone and using VoIP and cell phone or cell phone only if they only understood how to add a SIP agent to their cell phone.

I asked why the choices they've made? Here are some of the answers.
1. Convenience is more important than anything.
2. I want to cut costs. It doesn't make sense to pay each month $40 for my PSTN line another $65 for my cell phone, plus DSL at $45 a month. I'm better off with cable internet at $35/month and a cell phone and sometimes use Skype or Gizmo Project. That's $150 versus $100.
3. I dislike how DSL forces me to buy a phone number and line from them.
4. My kids don't like to use anything but a cell phone. They are light, have Internet on them, can take pictures and make them feel important.
5. I just wish the cell phone rates would decrease or we could use the cell phones like voip and save money.
6. Consumers want simple, inexpensive, convenient and versatile. Why can't we have it all?

A list of events that DIDX believes are well worth attendance are listed in two locations:
http://www.didx.net/events
and
Facebook's event section. You're invited to add yourself to these events on Facebook to start networking now and be sure to sign up for the actual events at events that DIDX sponsors and recommends.

DIDX.net is an industry/media sponsor for CTIA Wireless 2008 April 1-3 in Las Vegas. (Come visit us also at booth 7035.) DIDX provides the global wholesale direct inward dialing phone number marketplace for around 8000 telcos, many of whom are wireless operators. Cell phone companies buy and sell phone numbers on this "exchange" from 60 countries with other service providers with Super Technologies, Inc. care team taking care of all their old headaches in the center.

For those who are new to this concept, consumers, small businesses, enterprises and providers, in every day language... when an end user needs phone number from anywhere in the world, if their provider is a member of DIDX, they can get a phone number from any of 60 countries to ring to them wherever they are on their cell phone, landline, or voip phone. The members of DIDX are routing the numbers over SIP (session initiation protocol), Asterisk's IAX2 or other protocols for the ease, new opportunities, convenience, and price savings that customers need.

On the other hand, before DIDX, providers both wireless and other types, had access to providing phone numbers to their particular market. With DIDX, the world is their market. ARPU increase abounds. Everyone wins.

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