I hate cell phone plans and "predict the future" business models
Shared by Erik
Perhaps this will be stolen as T-Mobile and Sprint lead the way in evolving charges for cell plans-
I hate the business model of cell phone plans, which is the same one used by parking meters and any system that requires you to buy credits to use it (like iStockPhoto).
I’m sure you’ve seen the stories. A teen texts 1000s of messages in a month which vastly exce eds the number on the plan, and the parents are stuck with a bill that would buy a nice used car.
The difference between paying $20 and $2000? The decision you have to make ahead of time on which text messaging plan you want. With AT&T, you get no free texts, $5 gets you 200, $15 = 1200, and $20 is unlimited. The same pattern goes for talk minutes and even data usage.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a cell phone plan where you actually paid for what you used, rather than what you think you might use with massive penalties for being wrong? What if they simply charged you the $20 for unlimited texting that month, instead of the $5?
Now of course we know why phone companies don’t do that. Because they want people to pay for expensive plans that they don’t really need except occasionally. But how about this for a more customer friendly model that still preserves most of the extra revenues: On the month that the customer exceeds their plan, bump them up to the next higher plan that covers their usage, then keep them on that more expensive plan for subsequent months. Customers could still switch back to the lower plan if they choose to. But as we know, most won’t.
In the immortal words of Phil Haine, cell phone companies please steal this idea.
