A French company, Iliad, has
cracked a big market in France
with the equivalent of a $3 a month cell phone service. Competitors are scrambling, many have met the
price. Now they are seeking to buy part
or all of T-Mobile in the USA
to expand here. Already T-Mobile is the
leading price cutter here, and Verizon has lowered some prices to stay
competitive.
Illiad thinks the US cell phone
monthly pricing is way too high; I couldn’t agree more. Illiad would like to cut costs and do away with
paper monthly statements and things like that to get the price down. I am not sure that appeals to me, but
certainly my total cell-data package is too pricey for what it must cost
Verizon to service my device(s). And I
don’t even get cell signal in every room in my house, only near some
windows.
Average costs of USA cell phones today is $47 a month, compared to about
$30 average in France.
Sprint is talking with T-Mobile about merger, and is thus not showing much
interest in Illiad’s idea to buy a big percentage of the company. “Start small
and disrupt something big” is Illiad’s philosophy. Source Wall Street Journal
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