What determines who is the largest carrier?

It's not the same thing at all! I can choose to pay $40 for 500 minutes. Or I can choose to pay $80 for 500 minutes, off-network roaming, unlimited internet, unlimited SMS, and unlimited picture mail. Apparently, judging just by ARPU, more Sprint customers are choosing to pay more for minutes/services than are customers at Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. It's not as though Sprint is charging way more than Verizon for comparable services (and getting people to pay for them), thus raising their ARPU.

 

Ok you got me rancid! :cheers:

 

We can throw the numbers around anyway you want, the main thing that matters in my opinion is whether the customer feels satisfied with what they are getting for their money. And that is always a personal decision based on many factors, customer service, coverage, (especially in your house) and you wanna have that "not being screwed over" feeling when paying your bill.

No carrier is perfect for everyone, and like I said before I'm excited about the Sprint Nextel merger, just as I am about the Cingular At&t merger only because it is going to make Verizon poop or get off the pot.

The main thing I see as a hindrance to Nextel and Sprint merger is neither company has a really strong customer service record....that is probably the weakest area of both of their operations, I'm assuming that they will look very hard about making this a high priority, they will have a tough time fighting churn during the merger if this isn't taken care of right.

 

Well I agree with that, but I have no idea what it has to do with ARPU numbers and one carrier "costing" more than another. As you seem to be alluding to, one can feel like they are getting screwed over paing $40/month, yet could switch to a different carrier, pay $55/mo, and feel much more satisfied...or vice versa.

 

It takes more muscles to frown than to smile though.

 

How about #1 in churn rate?

 

We'll see how that turns out. AT&T had TM by a comfortable margin, so it will be interesting to see how much Cingular's churn increases.

 

Third quarter revenues, wireless only, figure in billions. VZW will probaby hold on as they are probably growing faster.

Verizon 7.2
Cingular 4.3
Sprint 3.7
AT&T 3.7
Nextel 3.4
T-Mobile 3.0

 

Too bad we will not get a good idea of Cingular's revenue for the 4th Qtr. since the merger happend 1/2 way thru the Qtr. Because if you went by these #'s the Cingular combined with AWE will be close to 8 Billion. So it will be interesting to see what the 1st Qtr of 05 shows as far as Revenues go, Churn, ETC...

 

I can't wait to see that myself.

 

In response to the title of this thread, I hereby declare that I now decide who is the largest carrier.




Edge Wireless now has the crown for getting a signal into the bunker basement of the grocery store I was at the other day.

 

But if we are going to judge by the size of the phones, then we all know Nextel is by far the largest of all.

 

:nono: :uppoint: