Devices, Media, And The Future Of Everything

AT&T's Unity -- The First Step To The Converged Network Is A Small One

Today AT&T announced its first service offering to leverage its combined wireless and wireline (now including BellSouth) network: Unity (press release here, and the offering itself here). For Unity subscribers all calls within the AT&T network -- every Cingular mobile phone, every AT&T consumer line (including CallVantage and UNE-P), and every AT&T business line -- are free. That's a lot of numbers -- 100 million, according to AT&T -- and sounds like a compelling value. Is it? Unity plans require:

• An unlimited local and long distance package (on average, $50/month);
• A minimum 900 minute wireless plan -- without Rollover. (at least $59.99 per month, one line).

After taxes and fees this will cost in the neighborhood of $125 per month -- $12 more than US households that subscribe to local, long distance, and mobile service said they spend on average for these services according to our 2006 Benchmark survey. And these households average more than 2 mobile phones.

The customer value proposition here is entirely on the wireless side -- any additional savings will come exclusively from calls made to and received from AT&T fixed lines on weekdays, before free nights kick in. Consumers who attempt to do the calculus will be incapable of estimating the savings since they rarely know whether they're calling or being called by an AT&T line.

AT&T will pitch this as simplicity for the customer, but their real motivation is to protect their profitable fixed line business. It's smart packaging and will likely have some success, but they'd do better to focus on what their customers want -- like a naked DSL line bundled with wireless service and Yahoo! Go to tie the two together, with an optional CallVantage line. Sure, the ARPU will be a bit lower but if that's what the customer wants they'll buy it as separate services from an MSO and another cellular provider, and AT&T's ARPU will be even lower.

Personally I'm looking forward to hearing their next announcements -- the ones that truly leverage a converged wireline and wireless network. Stay tuned.

Oh, the inhumanity

[Charlie] This year's Forrester Consumer Forum, held last month in Chicago, had the theme of "Humanizing the digital experience" (you can see some of the speeches here; if you're not a Forrester client you just have to register first). I had a lot of time to ponder that theme lately  -- 9 hours and 47 minutes in fact, if you're counting (I was). That's how long I spent on the phone with TimeWarner Cable customer care recently when my Internet service stopped working.

I know I'm not alone -- many of my neighbors were left in the offline cold, jolted back to the age of stone knives and bearskins by the transition from Comcast service to TimeWarner after those two companies bought the assets of Adelphia out of bankruptcy and then swapped systems to consolidate coverage in individual markets.

But this post is not about my particular travails, it's about how tone deaf TimeWarner Cable is across their channels. Here's the short list I compiled in my copious idle time:

• The initial communication. TimeWarner set a date of October 20 for the formal transition of their broadband subscribers, which they communicated . . . wait for it . . . by snail mail. Let's see, we've got a customer base, 100% of whom are not only online but have a high-speed, always on connection. Yep, USPS sounds like the best channel to communicate an urgent message, they probably don't check their email very often.

• The context-free IVR. After my first three selections in the IVR, the system knows: My account number (you can't block caller ID when you call a toll-free number); that I need tech support for my Internet connection; and that I have no connectivity. Given this understanding of my plight, why does the recording repeatedly offer suggestions about how to get answers to questions and solve problems . . . online? I don't think it's smart to use this opportunity to pitch me additional products, but if they insist on it why not use the context of my account to pitch me products that I don't already have, rather than just a blanket pitch?

• The utter disregard for the value of the customer's time. No one likes to be kept on hold, and today it's not necessary. ACD vendors like Avaya and Genesys Technologies offer a feature called "Virtual Hold," which allows the customer to have their call placed in the queue, and then have their call returned when they are first in the queue. This feature turns the frustrating hold interval into time the customer can use for productive ventures, and for the more than three quarters of households equipped with at least one mobile phone, it allows them to go about their business.

• The disconnect between marketing and reality. All of these failures are exacerbated by TimeWarner's current marketing campaign as they take over Comcast and Adelphia service areas -- which touts the customer-centricity of their care and service. Like much marketing, customers are left with the impression that it's so many empty promises rather than a commitment at all levels of the company.

Today's competition between MSOs and telcos has little to do with integrated services or innovation -- it's only about price and the customer experience. TimeWarner is right to promote a customer-focused approach, but they have to actually deliver on it. To do that they should upgrade their IVR logic and features so that their customers invest a minimum of time when problems arise.

What do you think?

T-Mobile's Fortuitous Timing

[Charlie] Following up on their spending spree in Auction 66, T-Mobile recently disclosed their  deployment plans for this new spectrum. As expected, they've chosen UMTS/HSDPA -- the same technology used in T-Mobile's 3G networks throughout Europe -- since it gives them considerable leverage in their equipment purchasing, both for network gear and handsets (as T-Mobile pointed out, their global subscriber base is 76% larger than Cingular's). What caught me off guard is that T-Mobile's timing looks to be nearly optimal although I doubt perfectly intentional. Why?

• Others have worked out the hardware kinks. T-Mobile will deploy second generation network gear, much smaller and less costly than the initial 3G networks in Europe, reducing their lease costs at each tower. Unlike the initial limited choice of bulky 3G handsets, they will have a wide selection of appealing phones to choose from -- today 3 in the UK offers at least 18 different models in compelling form factors like the Motorola RAZR V3x (in pumpkin, no less).
• Their competitors are building awareness . . . Verizon and Sprint are pumping marketing dollars into their VCAST and PowerVision services, educating consumers about why they want broadband speeds and applications like music downloading and video. But today uptake is limited to younger experimenters -- in our Q4 2005 survey barely 2% of adults say they had ever listened to streaming audio or watched streaming video on their phone.
• . . . Which should translate into demand by 2008. By the time T-Mobile launches nationally in 2008, data use will have moved into the mainstream of mobile phone users. They will come to market with competitive services that benefit from the lessons their competitors (and their European colleagues) will have learned the hard way. They should be able to both win customers from their competitors and entice their current customers -- who already are among the heaviest data users -- to upgrade their service and pay accordingly.

Now I admit this assumes that they deliver on their plan, and as evinced by both Verizon's stellar performance and Sprint's recent travails, execution is critical. But wouldn't it be ironic should it turn out that T-Mobile's spectrum shortage over the past several years was a blessing in disguise, since it forced them to sit on the sidelines until the time was just right to capitalize on consumers' shifting behavior?

What do you think?

Note to ESPN: It's a phone

[Charlie] Yesterday Disney called it quits for Mobile ESPN, the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) launched barely eight months ago but fell at least one order of magnitude short of their subscriber targets. Certainly Mobile ESPN made many missteps, from their unsubsidized $499 price for their first (and only, at the time) phone to their marketing that failed to clearly establish the offering as a service and not just a phone. I draw two key lessons from their demise:

• MVNOs require a well-defined and targetable audience. ESPN has a powerful brand but it is extremely broad and appeals to everyone from casual fans who just enjoy the entertainment of Sportscenter to the maniacs at whom they were aiming, who devour heapin' helpings of minutiae. The questions that MVNOs like Helio and AMP'd have to answer are whether they have a unique appeal to a specific audience, whether that audience is willing to spend what they are charging, and whether they are able to successfully reach that audience.

• A phone's primary purpose is communication. This was the greater failing -- ESPN crafted a mobile service offering based on the assumption that their content was the primary experience. But even the most devout sports nut (ok, except for a couple of tens of thousands) still cares more about using their phone for voice and messaging than for ESPN's content. This is the same lesson Apple learned with their iPod Photo misstep -- devices have to be targeted at their primary function and do it well; other features are all secondary.

Disney has got it right on the second point in their other MVNO (Disney Mobile) -- they're offering families better control over their communications and tools for parents to feel comfortable with giving their kids a mobile phone at a young age. I'm not sure about the first point, though -- especially as kids grow to an age where the last brand they want to show their friends is Disney. But then again, Virgin and Boost have the same problem.

Think differently? Let me know.