Is 3x Enough?

There is still some misunderstanding on the benefits of dual-mode handsets and home zone services. Operators are struggling to find services which offer some type of benefit, either increasing ARPU or reducing churn. I’m not sure what the market expects, but I think a service that reduces churn by 3x is not bad.

According to a slide deck used in France Telecom’s Investor Days (December, 2007):

“Homes equipped with UNIK churn 3 times less on their mobile contract than others” [slide 20, file: 5-France.pdf]

Is there any other service that reduces churn by 3x? Note this claim is from the actual operator who is realizing the benefit. It is unfiltered, unbiased, and objective information.

Maybe just keeping subscribers on your network isn’t enough...

How about a service that causes new subscribers to churn to your network? In today’s hyper-competitive market, subscriber numbers are a zero sum game, for you to win, someone needs to be losing.

T-Mobile recently announced that nearly 50% of the users taking their HotSpot @Home service are new to the operator.

Frankly that’s a staggering statistic. People are churning to T-Mobile to get a dual-mode handset service. To put it into perspective, an early article on AT&T about the iPhone said that “roughly 40% of iPhone subscribers were new AT&T customers.”

So DMH out-churns the iPhone!?!?! Crazy.

I know iPhone and HotSpot@Home are different, but both are bringing new subscribers to the operator’s network. I haven’t seen churn numbers on the iPhone, presumably because the users are still locked into their 2 year contracts, but 3x reduction on DMH services isn’t bad.

I guess the point of this post is: If you don’t have a UMA-based dual-mode handset service to sell, maybe the iPhone is the next best thing?