A New Look at Wireless Habits - Industry Trend or Event - Statistical Data Included

Telecommunications, Sept, 2000 by Larry Swasey

The wireless movement has expanded beyond the business place and into mainstream society. To get to the next level of services, the habits of users and nonusers must be noted to allow the development of applications that will foster further use of the wireless handset. Not only must the subscriber base increase, but each user must be enticed to utilize the handset as more than a voice access tool. The industry could do well with the ever-increasing voice audience, but to increase revenue per subscriber, wireless data services must play a key role in this expansion.

Research group Allied Business Intelligence took an early look at user habits and found results that seem to run contrary to common cell phone beliefs. The survey found that most users are relative newcomers: 66 percent have been customers for three years or less; 24 percent for one year or less.

Less than 1 percent of the population has decided to unplug the wireline phone in favor of going completely wireless, according to findings published in ABI's Mobile Wireless Voice and Data Usage 2000.

Many in the industry have confused the substitution of wireless for wireline with the complement of wireless to wireline. Subscribers have increased their wireless usage over the past few years, but most still have a wireline account. Many in the mainstream media have taken the number of new wireless subscribers and the number of canceled wireline accounts and made a leap of faith that one relates to the other.

This is not necessarily the case. For example, each May hundreds of thousands of college students disconnect phone service in their dorm rooms or apartments, and each May hundreds of thousands of users subscribe to wireless service. Does this mean the people canceling wireline accounts are the same ones signing up for wireless? Probably not.

Security, convenience and efficiency were ranked as the top three reasons for cell phone use with security chosen as the top reason by 64 percent of the sample. This matches the way wireless phones have been marketed, so it is apparent the wireless industry understands users' needs. However, only 18.5 percent of the nonuser sample said they felt the need for a cell phone in the past month.

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Internet access was ranked very low as a reason for wanting a cell phone, with only 2.3 percent choosing it as one of the top three reasons for having a cell phone. Only 0.4 percent of the sample chose the cell phone primarily for Internet access capabilities. When asked the most desirable feature of Internet access via the cell phone, the largest response was "no opinion" (42.8 percent). The No. 2 response was e-mail, with 31 percent. The usual suspects--weather, news, stock updates and sports scores--all received some interest, but location-based services fared better than all other none-e-mail categories, with 3.5 percent picking it as the first response. Overall, if the user chose three applications, e-mail, weather/news headlines and location-based services finished within the top three. (Picked 1, 2 or 3: e-mail, 31 percent; weather, 27.5 percent; news headlines, 19.8 percent and location-based services, 19.3 percent)

Stock quotes and sports scores fell out of the top three choices with stock quotes ranked 1, 2 or 3 by only 8.8 percent and sports scores ranked 1, 2 or 3 by 7.5 percent.

The car is still the most popular spot for cellular phone use, with 75 percent of respondents naming it one of their top three areas; 65 percent ranked the car as the No. 1 place the cell phone is used. Public transportation, home and office use also ranked as a frequent top-three response.

Calling emergency services or one's spouse are the primary calling destinations. Emergency help was ranked as a top-three response by 71 percent of the sample and by 36 percent as the top call destination. Spouses were ranked as a top-three choice by 45 percent of the sample and a top destination by 27 percent. Although the cell phone has been seen as a business tool, it is surprising that only 5 percent chose a business associate as the top person to call, while 22 percent said that was one of the top three persons who would be called.

Larry Swasey is vice president of the communications research practice at Allied Business Intelligence. He specializes in wireless access technologies and infrastructure.