On Sat, 28 Jul 2001, Benjamin Kowarsch wrote:
> Then take a loan for your phone and pay it off all by yourself.
> Unfortunately that is not what subsidised phones are about.
I did, and it is what subsidised phones are all about. Your rather
contrived example of the cars and petrol networks misses a couple
of facts. First, changeover costs are not nearly so bad as you imply.
Sure, you may have to wait out the remainder of your year if you get
dissatisfied, but at the end of the year you're also going to get a really
good deal on a competing network's phone. In fact, it's practically
as cheap to switch with a subsidised phone as if you bought your own
and can use your old one--which maybe you can't, if you want any new
features. (SMS doesn't work so well over AMPS, if you haven't noticed.)
In fact, I would argue that, for Japanese consumers, this whole thing
makes no difference whatsoever because you get a new phone every year
to two years anyway. If the European and American markets didn't have
such crap phones and such a slow pace of development, you might change
phones there more often, too.
Anyway, when all networks make entry as cheap as possible, it suddenly
becomes in their own interest to offer reasonable rates and good service
(at least at renewal time), because they won't have a customer a year
from now if they don't.
I'll admit that the level of competition is not as high as it could be,
and in fact customers are generally somewhat screwed over in terms of
access charges, but this is true of *everything* telco-related. It's
the unfortunate nature of the business, and unless the regulators get
their you-know-what in gear one day (not likely) and force some of
these companies to clean up their acts or lose their semi-monopolies,
this situation is going to continue. He who owns the local loop has the
power, really, and they are systematically bending everyone over the sofa
and will continue to do so as long as they can. Subsidised handsets have
nothing to do with this.
As far as the profit warnings, well, that's more to do with the general
technology/communications bubble than anything else. And even that's not
as bad as people make it out to be, I think. A lot of folks are pissed
off that they're no longer recipients of some rather stupid largess on
the part of some investors, but it's not as if it's ever been abnormal
(aside from a few years in one particular industry) to be expected to
run your business to make a profit. And there are a lot more dot coms
in business than going out of it.
> Trouble is, will this get petrol prices back to where they would have been
> without car subsidies in the first place ?
Well, if we're going to speculate on hypothetical alternate futures,
I'll argue that the prices are already far lower than they ever would
have been without subsidies. Ten years ago, could you have guessed that
people would just buy a cellphone and not even bother with a landline? And
that every teenager that walks through Hachiko crossing (that being a
hundred thousand or more daily) would have a keitai? Getting a lot of
people in cheap drove the technology to the point where it could become
a lot more cost-effective.
> Well, my Japanese phone is a Sanyo C405 and I believe it weighs 62g. It's
> so tiny that there is no belt holder for it and I do have to carry it in
> the shirt pocket which makes it fall out when I bend over. I know the
> difference and I prefer the Nokia.
I think the Latin tag in my sig already provided the final answer to
this one.
cjs
--
Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.net> +81 3 5778 0123 de gustibus, aut bene aut nihil
"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain."
-- G. Fitch
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Mon Jul 30 09:54:45 2001