…THAT is the question. I live Amarillo, Texas (Centrally Located Between Two Oceans!™). We are served by AT&T, Altel (now owned by Verison), Sprint, and…that’s about it. No T-Mobile. No other choices. That wouldn’t be so bad, but of all the cell phone vendors we have here in the Panhandle, how many offer 3G service? None. Nada. Zip. Bupkiss. Nyet. Zero.

Color me frustrated.

Despite the ads you hear nationwide, where Version brands itself as “most reliable,” AT&T as “largest network with the best signal strength” and Sprint “fastest 3G” – not a one o’ these clowns offer 3G in lil’ ol’ Amarillo. Why? And from a marketing perspective, why bother to spend money on advertising 3G locally, when it’s not available?

The ugly little secret of the cell phone industry, is that 3G = higher infrastructure costs. When you light up a 3G network, customers will use more airtime, to transmit more bits. That means the companies need more capacity out of each cell tower, straining networks that were likely underbuilt in the first place. Higher data use (at 3G speeds) means more dropped calls when you have a network that can barely keep up with demand as it is.

What’s a rich, greedy poor cell phone company to do?

Their answer is a sort of gentlemen’s agreement that nobody needs to light up 3G in what they laughingly call a “secondary” or “tertiary” market, until somebody else does. In other words, I’m not likely to see the little bandwidth indicator go from “1X” to “EV” on my Windows Mobile (accursed piece of crap) cell phone here in the Panhandle any time soon, because neither Altel/Verison nor AT&T want to be the first to light up 3G. Sprint, being the Luddite of the group, will not be the first to the 3G table here, at least not while I use their service. (June – and the end of my indentured servitude contract to Sprint can’t come quickly enough.)

I recently flew to Dallas, then rented a car and drove to Shreveport, some 180 miles away. Dallas, of course, is one of the 10 largest cities/metro areas in the country. Shreveport is…not. While Shreveport is either the second- or third-largest city in Louisiana (depending on the state of New Orleans population), it’s not Dallas. Shreveport is, as far as I was able to determine, totally bereft of 3G service. Sprint showed “1X” my entire time there. Interestingly enough, I had EVDO service (Sprint’s version of 3G) all the way from Dallas to just on the other side of Longview, about 2/3 of the way there. For those of you unfamiliar with the terrain, allow me to illustrate:

View Larger Map

So if Shreveport dwarfs the population of Longview, Marshall, Tyler and all the other stops betwixt Shrevepit and Big D, why does 3G service abruptly end shy of the Texas/Louisiana border?

I dunno. I presume they have the same kind of situation in the town of my birth and childhood that we do up here in Amarillo, i.e.: nobody wants to be first. That begs the question, why advertise 3G locally, when it’s not available.

I chalk it up to a combination of stupidity, laziness, and insensitivity.

You see, most of the cell phone spots you see, are going to run within the national block of programming airtime, even on local stations. But most local viewers aren’t knowledgeable in the ways of advertising to realize that just because they see a spot run on their local CBS/ABC/NBC/Fox/CW affiliate, it doesn’t mean it’s a “local” spot. Add to that the fact that many national brands provide taggable spots to local vendors, and you have a situation where most spots that are run locally advertise whatever the national vendor is pushing. Since that’s 3G at the moment, local yokels see ads for 3G from all sides, even though they can’t get it.

You’d think that Verison, AT&T and the hapless, clueless bunch at Sprint would provide some spots for 3G-less areas, to avoid the problem of advertising something that is not available, whetting the appetite of consumers who will likely be un-sated for some time to come. And you’d be wrong.

I don’t know what these guys are thinking, but when I hear execs from Verison and Sprint brag that they have “all majority of their network” lit up with 3G, it makes me feel as if we’re just not that important to them, in the greater scheme of things.

Think that’s bad? Here’s the REALLY sick, sad world part of this: 3G networks exist in both Amarillo and Shreveport. Yep. That’s right. The hardware and software is there, and functioning. It’s just not turned on. How do I know? They told me. They’ve spent the bucks to upgrade their infrastructure, but because they believe the demand isn’t sufficient for them to make money on it, each network has chosen to keep 3G turned off until one of their competitors turns it on.

This makes for a really stupid situation with AT&T. I’ve been jonesing for an iPhone for some time now. My Sprint contract is up in June (Thank GOD). I’d like to switch. However, the shiny, new 3G iPhones come equipped with a (required) 3G data plan from your friends at the Death Star, a.k.a.: AT&T. But wait, you realize. Why should I pay for 3G service, when it’s not available here. Aye, laddie, that’s the rub. You see, AT&T’s position is that, even if you live in a non 3G area, and don’t travel to places that are graced with 3G service, you might, someday, sometime, be in a place that offers 3G, so you should pay for it, just in case.

Talk about chutzpah.

And of course, AT&T still has an exclusive relationship with Apple’s iPhone, at least for another year or two. After that, I’m sure Version (and Sprint, if they haven’t managed to alienate every customer or prospective customer they’ve ever had and driven themselves out of business) will get the iPhone, version 4 or 5. At that point, you might be able to get a deal on a data plan. Until then, rotsa ruck.

Lost in all this marketing madness is…the customers. I have no desire to pay for something I can’t have. I have no interest in watching ads for products not available to me, especially when there’s no indication as to when – or if – I’ll ever get them. And I’m weary of hearing execs proudly trumpet their “3G coverage statistics” when I’m on the outside, looking in.

Call this one for bad marketing, from an industry who’s most accurate slogans could be “_______ Wireless…we’re marginally not quite as awful as our competition. Seriously.” Now there’s an industry in need of some help, well beyond what marketing can do.

What fools these cell phone companies be.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 8:43 am and is filed under advertising, design, marketing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.