J.D. Power Call Quality Performance Survey Results

[Kris Kumar]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/19/technology/personaltech/cell_quality/index.htm' target='_blank'>http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/19/technology/personaltech/cell_quality/index.htm</a><br /><br /></div><i>"AT&T Wireless scored below average in every region of the country in the latest J.D. Power and Associates Wireless Call Quality Performance Study."</i><br /><br />Main <a href="http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2004/Aug/1066766.htm">results</a> of the study:<br />• <i>Northeast Region:</i> Sprint PCS & Verizon Wireless are tied<br />• <i>Mid-Atlantic Region:</i> Verizon Wireless<br />• <i>Southeast Region:</i> T-Mobile<br />• <i>North Central Region:</i> Nextel Communications<br />• <i>Southwest Region:</i> T-Mobile<br />• <i>West Region:</i> Sprint PCS<br />• T-Mobile is ranked higher than Verizon Wireless in four out of six regions :? <br />• Cingular is ranked below average in all regions except the West<br /><br />I live in the Northeast region and my observations agree with the findings of this survey. Do you agree with the survey?

[Kris Kumar]

I am surprised and pretty impressed with T-Mobile's performances in the recent surveys (http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6066).

[randalllewis]

I live in the west and--- so far--- I would agree with Cingular's rating in this survey. I've had Sprint, ATT, Verizon and now Cingular over the years and I have service throughout my house and in places where all of the others would drop calls. I've only had Cingular for two weeks and while I tested out all of the dead zones I know the other guys have around here, I haven't been everywhere. But I did appreciate a service Cingular offered me at sign-up that no one else has: showing me their actual signal strength maps for my home town, including where the weak spots are.

In this area, Sprint would be my number two followed by Verizon and then ATT.

What drove me to experience four of the big five carriers is a search for something approaching decent customer service. In that category, there are no number ones, but Verizon certainly owns the bottom of the barrel for me.

[Janak Parekh]

I live in the Northeast region and my observations agree with the findings of this survey. Do you agree with the survey?
I find that in the NYC metro area, Verizon still tops Sprint in areas... but Sprint certainly has been playing catch-up. Unfortunately, in my office building, Sprint is too weak... so I'm stuck with Verizon or T-Mobile, yet at home T-Mobile doesn't work. :|

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

What drove me to experience four of the big five carriers is a search for something approaching decent customer service. In that category, there are no number ones, but Verizon certainly owns the bottom of the barrel for me.
Interesting. My experiences (and what I've heard) strongly suggest Sprint/ATT are the bottom-of-the-barrel. It seems it really depends on an individual's experiences more than anything.

--janak

[randalllewis]

That's what I thought too. I switched from ATT to Verizon based on reports in credible publications about their customer service. Without going into the gory details, I'll just say their practice with me was to keep me bouncing between telephone customer service and one of their stores. They each claimed they were noting our conversations on my account, but that I'd need to talk to telephone support to complete my arrangement with them, or if I was on the phone that I'd need to go into a store to finalize the details. After three months of that, I said goodbye, early termination fee and all. My time is too valuable and the termination fee was a lot less than 18 more months of crappy service and a phone that wouldn't work well that they wouldn't replace.

[ShivShanks]

Very interesting. I didn't quite expect Sprint PCS doing quite so well and Verizon doing not so well. The Cingular and AT&T positions were pretty much expected by me. And the two crappiest networks are merging in the future. Great!

T-Mobile has been quite a surprise. At least here me and my friends' experiences with T-Mobile haven't been great, but I suppose its better in other parts of the country. One thing everyone should note is that these are very subjective tests and depends very much on how and where they tested it. I for one certainly found some funny things in the methodology -

"No connection on the first try was the second most serious problem"

Huh? No connection would be the most serious problem for me :roll: BTW Technology wise CDMA takes 3 regions :), GSM 2 and iDEN 1. It's interesting T-Mobile is kicking some as* in the GSM arena and without them the GSM camp would be trouble. And the funny thing is that T-Mobile is only around 1/4 th the size of the total GSM market and they are the 2nd smallest nationwide operator.

[Kris Kumar]

You are right, T-Mobile's small size helps them in these surveys. Especially the call quality survey. Its like the low cost airlines, fewer flights means better operational statistics and happy customers. Small network footprint makes it easy to maintain consistent performance and great customer service.

[aristoBrat]

And the funny thing is that T-Mobile is only around 1/4 th the size of the total GSM market and they are the 2nd smallest nationwide operator.
Only Verizon is adding more new customers per quarter than T-Mobile, so it'll be interesting to see how long they stay in the "2nd smallest" position. :)

[ShivShanks]

And the funny thing is that T-Mobile is only around 1/4 th the size of the total GSM market and they are the 2nd smallest nationwide operator.
Only Verizon is adding more new customers per quarter than T-Mobile, so it'll be interesting to see how long they stay in the "2nd smallest" position. :)

Sorry but you keep forgetting to factor in churn. T-Mobile has one of the worst churn rates so in reality other operators are adding more customers than T-Mobile if you go by how many of them remain after a year.

[aristoBrat]

Sorry but you keep forgetting to factor in churn. T-Mobile has one of the worst churn rates so in reality other operators are adding more customers than T-Mobile if you go by how many of them remain after a year.
NO NO NO NO! LOL :D

T-Mobile: 2.8% of 15M = 1.5M lost to churn for the entire year
They're on track to add 4.4M new for the year
That's +2.9M customers for them this year.

Sprint: 2.6% of 22.2M = 2.3M lost to churn for the entire year
They're on track to add 3.6M new for the year
Thats +1.3M customers for them this year.

Cingular: 2.7% of 25M = 2.7M lost to churn for the entire year
They're on track to add 1.7M new for the year.
That's -1M customers for them this year.

I could go on, but basically, T-Mobile, even with it's slightly higher churn, is still going to be second to Verizon for the number of new customers added this year.

[ShivShanks]

NO NO NO NO! LOL :D

T-Mobile: 2.8% of 15M = 1.5M lost to churn for the entire year
They're on track to add 4.4M new for the year
That's +2.9M customers for them this year.

Sprint: 2.6% of 22.2M = 2.3M lost to churn for the entire year
They're on track to add 3.6M new for the year
Thats +1.3M customers for them this year.

Cingular: 2.7% of 25M = 2.7M lost to churn for the entire year
They're on track to add 1.7M new for the year.
That's -1M customers for them this year.

I could go on, but basically, T-Mobile, even with it's slightly higher churn, is still going to be second to Verizon for the number of new customers added this year.

Sorry your math is wrong. Churn doesn't affect the whole customer base in the same way. Applying that churn %age to the whole customer base is just wrong. You have to apply the churn %age to the people who have joined in the last one year. By your logic T-Mobile is going to add more than double the new customers of Sprint PCS. Then how do you explain that even this quarter Sprint PCS added 0.9 million customers vs. 1 million by T-Mobile? Shouldn't it have been half? You should refer the post I made in our previous discussion. By your logic and calculation if the numbers follow the same trend next quarter then T-Mobile should add double the customers. When the numbers come in I'll be sure to point it out to you that nothing of that sort happend. Mark my words for I shall be back to rub it in :)

[aristoBrat]

Actually, figuring out churn manually is pointless.

After doing some research, it was pointed out that "net subscriber additions" is equal to the number of new customers MINUS the number of customers who left, so churn is already factored in.

Having said that, here are the "net subscriber additions" for 1H 04:

2.7M = Verizon
2.3M = T-Mobile
1.8M = Sprint
1.0M = Cingular
-0.4M = AT&T