Mobile USA Services: Phone & Broadband Internet
These days it is hard to remember what life was like without a mobile phone. Very few Americans these days don’t have access to a mobile phone, and they have fast become a staple part of every day life. The USA has the third largest amount of mobile phones out of every country in the world, with over 260 million - that’s almost 86% of the population having a mobile phone.
Since mobile phones first became widely used in the mid 1990’s, they have become increasingly advanced. Not only do they make phone calls, but people also use them to send SMS’ (short text messages), email, to access the internet, as cameras, and also for video calls. They are becoming more advanced by the day.
Mobile phones would not function without the help of mobile carriers and services. With so many Americans having a mobile phone, mobile networks are big business - and there are over 180 different mobile service providers in the USA.
The five largest of the mobile carriers are: Verizon Wireless; AT&T; Sprint Nexel Corporation; T-Mobile USA; and TracFone Wireless.
Verizon Wireless is the largest provider with over 86.6 million subscribers in the USA, and a revenue of over $43.9 billion in 2007 alone. Verizon Wireless’ headquarters are in New Jersey, and the company is a joint venture between Verizon Communications and the Vodafone group. Verizon Wireless offer subscribers a variety of deals and benefits. Their latest deal is the “Family and Friends” offer. It was announced in February 2009, and allows eligible customers the option to select up to 10 of your closest friends and family to have unlimited calls to - both mobile and landline numbers.
Verizon Wireless also run a program called ’HopeLine’ - where they collect up old and used mobile phones, batteries and accessories and are either fixed and refurbished for resale or are disposed of in an environmentally friendly way. They have distributed over 60,000 phones with 160 million free call minutes on them to victims of domestic violence across the USA.
The second largest mobile phone carrier in the USA is AT&T with over 78.2 million customers in the USA, and had a revenue of $42.7 billion in 2007. AT&T were the first American company to release the popular iPhone 3G in July 2008. It is still the only network on which you can purchase an iPhone. Within the first three days of them going on sale, over 1 million devices were sold in the USA alone. The network offers a variety of different plans to suit all different customers, including family plans. AT&T along with T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless have all chosen to use the new 4G network technology - which has much faster access rates.
The third largest mobile carrier in the USA is Sprint Nextel and has 49 million customers Spring Nextel was first founded in 2005 when Sprint - one of the world’s main internet carriers - bought Nextel Communications for $135 billion. As well as offering mobile phone services, it also offers internet under the name SprintLink. They also own Boost Mobile, a subsidiary of Spring Nextel that offers prepaid mobile plans. Nextel is also the name of the range of walkie-talkie enabled phones the company have released. Sprint also released an online music store for it’s customers in October 2005. In just one year over 8 million songs had been downloaded. They have some of the biggest record labels involved including Sony BMG, EMI Music, and Warner music group.
With 33.28 million customers, T-Mobile USA is the fourth largest mobile phone carrier. T-Mobile is an international company based in Bonn, Germany, but it’s USA subsidiary came about in 2002 after US company VoiceStream Wireless was bought by Dutch company Deutsche Telekom for $24 billion. The name was then changed to T-Mobile. They now have an annual revenue of around $17.1 billion. T-Mobile is most popular with the younger generation as it offers some of the cheapest rates out of all of the USA networks. T-Mobile has also gathered a large range of awards and praise for their great customer service and overall customer satisfaction. T-Mobile also runs over 8,350 internet access points called T-Mobile hotspots, where people can access the internet on their laptops or compatible mobiles at various places across the USA including Starbucks, Hilton Hotels and the American Airlines club.
The final mobile USA carrier we shall look at today is TracFone Wireless, which has over 11 million customers across the USA and is the fifth largest. TracFone is a prepaid network provider, and offers services across America, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was established in 1996 in Miami Florida, and has changed names numerous times since. It is generally marketed to immigrant communities, and offers great value on international calls.
