Holiday shoppers this year will be faced with a variety of choices when it comes to selecting a wireless service, and the average consumer probably will have a difficult time wading through all the alphabet soup.
According to a survey commissioned by Ameritech Corp. and conducted earlier this year by Wirthlin Worldwide, 86 percent of consumers say they are unclear about the different types of wireless phone service available. Only 8 percent of respondents said they had ever heard the acronyms TDMA, CDMA or GSM, and only 1 percent were able to identify what the acronyms stood for.
Only 3 percent of respondents knew what PCS stood for.
“There’s a lot of confusion,” said Geoff Mordock, a research associate with the Telecommunications Research & Action Center. “A lot of people don’t know that there’s a difference between PCS and cellular, and a lot of people don’t realize that they operate at different frequencies. A lot of people don’t realize that there is digital on cellular frequencies.”
TRAC, a nonprofit company based in Washington, D.C., has compared long-distance pricing since the break-up of AT&T Corp. Mordock said the company saw a void in consumer information on wireless technology and decided to research it. The organization released its first report on the cellular industry this year.
Carriers also are using the holiday season to create goodwill by educating customers on the intricacies of purchasing wireless phones. Bell Atlantic Mobile and Comcast Communications Inc. each released tip sheets for customers outlining basic points to consider and questions to ask before purchasing a wireless service.
All three consumer guides encourage costumers to spend some time considering their specific wireless needs before even entering a store to make a wireless purchase. How the customer plans to use the phone will determine what kind of coverage, pricing, bundled minutes and enhanced services that customer will need, they said.
Price is the biggest factor when purchasing a wireless service, said the Yankee Group in its “Mobile Technologies and the Consumer 2000” report. Network coverage is the next most important factor followed by features and brand, said the report.
In terms of coverage, analog networks still are better than digital networks for the moment, said the reports. If customers opt for digital service, they must then make a selection between technologies, said TRAC.
“People are spending between $100 and $500 for a digital phone, and they need to know what’s really involved,” said TRAC’s Mordock. “Part of what we wanted to do was, not only inform consumers and give them recommendations, but we wanted to educate them about the different technologies.”
TRAC’s report not only advises customers on the questions they need to ask and the points they need to consider before purchasing a wireless phone, but it also takes an in-depth look at the differences between Code Division Multiple Access, Time Division Multiple Access and Global System for Mobile communications technologies. The report explains how each technology works and what its benefits and weaknesses are.
All three digital technologies received high marks in the TRAC report for security, enhanced services and voice quality. CDMA technology rated the highest though, due largely to its expected leading position in the U.S. marketplace within a few years, as well as its soft handoff capability, lower power consumption and better signal quality, said the report.
TRAC said in the future it plans to research and release reports on wireless handsets and prices.
