Our goal at BillShrink is to be a trusted resource that consumers will leverage for researching purchase decisions across a number of product/service categories. That being said, we had to start somewhere, and decided early on to pursue wireless services as our first category. There were several reasons we got particularly excited about wireless:
1. Cell phones are ubiquitous. It’s probably intuitive, but the numbers are pretty staggering: 243 million mobile subscribers in the U.S. (which is over 80% of the population) and 3.3 billion mobile subscribers worldwide! So it was exceedingly clear this was an area where we could benefit a lot of people.
2. People spend a lot of money on cell phone service. The average U.S. user spends about $50 each month , and those of us with data plans, etc. are regularly paying $100+. So for a lot of people, wireless service ends up being one of their biggest expenses, month after month. So we saw an opportunity to help consumers save money in a meaningful way.
3. Picking the right cell phone plan today is hard. Sure, there are only 4 national carriers (AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile). But between the four of them, there are still several hundred different plans to choose from, each with its own mix of minutes, restrictions, pricing, etc. And then each plan comes up with its own set of add-ons, features, etc. So when all is said and done, you’re looking at well over ten million different plan combinations. No wonder it’s not easy. Over the years, there have been some academic studies from researchers at University of Texas and Stanford that explored and confimed the difficulties that consumers face when picking phone plans, given the underlying complexity and uncertainty about usage. And ironically, those studies were focused on landline service, which most people would agree is not even half as complex as cell phone service with all its idiosyncrasies.
4. Cell phone service is highly personalized. If 100 people had the exact same base plan, they may still each end up paying a different dollar figure at the end of the month, simply because everyone’s usage is different. The only way to know whether a particular cell phone plan is a good fit for someone is to measure it against that individual’s specific usage profile (i.e. how much you call, when you call, who you call, where you live, whether you use SMS, MMS, etc.) This highly-personalized and deeply analytical approach is the cornerstone of our focus at BillShrink and so naturally wireless was a strong fit.
We are hoping to help a lot of consumers pick the right carrier, cell phone, and cell phone plan with our wireless application. Give it a shot and let us know what you think…
