While T-Mobile and AT&T have each recently started allowing smartphone users to carry over unused data from one month to the next, customers of the nation’s largest wireless provider shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for Verizon to announce something similar.
Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran “ShamWow” Shammo tells CNET that rollover data isn’t in the cards for Big V.
“We’re a leader, not a follower,” said Shammo in apparent disregard of every hubris-filled industry leader who dismissed market trends to their own peril.
“We did not go to places where we did not financially want to go to save a customer,” continued Shammo, whose name is really fun to say. “And there’s going to be certain customers who leave us for price, and we are just not going to compete with that because it doesn’t make financial sense for us to do that.”
As CNET points out, while Verizon has seen subscriber growth, it’s also seeing increased turnover due to what little competition remains in the wireless market. Turnover cuts into profit as you spend more to acquire customers who don’t stick around as long.
Verizon has thus far been able to hang on to its leadership position through a reliable and vast LTE network, though some tests have found that Verizon LTE service is the same or slower than the competition from AT&T and T-Mobile.
While there are some questions about T-Mo’s ability to continue disrupting the status quo of the U.S. wireless market, AT&T’s deeper coffers may allow that company to launch an all-out effort to siphon off Verizon customers. And if Sprint can ever get its LTE network up to par with the rest of the field, its overseas owners at Softbank may be poised for a prolonged pricing war.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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