The majority of the American populations routinely choose Locked Cell Phones which is an outcome that does not favor the individual and the general economy long term. Ensquared has undertaken a complete nationwide market study from Miami Florida up towards New York city and across the country to cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Our findings represent some alarming results which we would like to share with you.
1. Carriers use the locked phone as the bait: By this we mean that cell phone providers such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and others draw attention to the bells and whistles of a phone brand and model such as a Locked Samsung, LG, Nokia, Blackberry or Iphone. The bait is very attractive since it requires customers to pay a nominal upfront amount to possess the new locked cell phone handset.
2. Technology features or specific brands become "must have" products for consumers: These are often sold on an exclusive basis by means of a locked cell phone arrangement. Applie Iphone through AT&T in the USA is a prime example.
3. Consumers don't understand the implications of a fixed term cell phone contract: They rarely understand the contract exit fee's they have signed up on. The carriers do such a fine job of keeping this vital information strictly within the fine print it's almost impossible to be presented with all the facts at the time of purchase.
4. The introduction of prepaid cell phone services USA is not well understood by consumers: In addition it is not marketed mainstream within the USA. The signing of long term contracts continues to follow routine purchasing behavior similar to that of others within family and social networks.
5. Unlocked Cell Phones are difficult to find: Especially within the mainstream retail shopping centers of America, thus leaving consumers with the option to only purchase locked handsets.
6. Old technology is still in play despite the launch on GSM: Carriers and providers such as Sprint Nextel, Cricket , Virgin Mobile continue to offer CDMA based products and solutions which does not allow for interoperable SIM exchanges by means of unlocked cell phones.
After reading the key points of Ensquared findings it is hard to believe that the cellphone landscape within the United States technology sector has not been radically altered. The reason change is not being brought about in a swift enough manner is due to the fact that the people responsible for change are not allowing for such change to occur. These "people" are the cellular carriers and the cell phone manufacturers. How the stronghold works is as follows. The Carriers (or sometimes referred to as Service Providers or Mobile Phone companies) commit to new product launches where they agree to promote a new model of a particular cell phone handset. The manufacturers are after large quantity orders from the Carriers. agreement is reached on a discount price and commitment to lock the phone at time of bulk manufacture build. In addition, the manufacturers agree to provide the carriers with marketing dollars as a subsidy to enable and assist the launch of a particular promotion. We therefore observe a handset being promoted heavily with all its technology and design merits; however what consumers don't easily see is that the handset/ phone is locked and cannot easily be used on simply any network, anytime.
Beyond the above an industry secret which is not well publicized is that these same cell phone manufactures also produce most phones in an unlocked format, which are sold through smaller, lightweight channels such as dealers and virtual network operators. Ensquared is focused on sourcing excellent deals with respect to unlocked phones allowing you the consumer to leverage all the natural benefits. We trust that you will make the decision to switch to an unlocked phone and should you choose to do so we would love nothing more that to service you.
