University of Kentucky Drops Dorm Landline Service

Bernie — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:35:37 -0400

In a sign of the times, the University of Kentucky has decided to drop landline voice service to its dorm rooms – all 3,060 of them. Students can still request a phone line if they like – so far this year, seven students have. The move came after the university conducted a survey, and found 98.2 percent of students in dorms own and prefer to use cell phones. While not surprising, this development is still quite eye opening. It hits traditional telecom carriers in two ways. One is the obvious trend that everyone already knows about – generation Y has little interest or need for a landline phone. In addition, colleges and universities have always been a lucrative source of telecom revenue for the carriers that are lucky to have them in their territories. If this trend continues, and there’s no reason to believe it won’t, traditional landline carriers will increasingly lose that revenue stream. It sets up an ugly one-two punch. Maybe they should change their approach. This market segment seems ripe for a broadband offering with a VoIP component, priced in such a way that voice is perceived as "free."

Femtocells to Accelerate Wireline Substitution?

Bernie — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:56:15 -0400

Several blogs, including Boy Genius Report (BGR) and Engadget are reporting that Sprint intends to launch their version of femtocell service nationwide sometime this month. Sprint has been trialing femtocell technology in Denver and Indianapolis. Sprint’s femtocell product, Airave, sets up a mini cell tower in a subscriber’s home and utilizes the subscriber’s home broadband service as the transport medium into the core network. Femtocells are seen as a potentially disruptive force on the competitive landscape because in theory, they’ll provide better in home coverage for wireless calls. That better in-home coverage may provide enough ammunition for customers who saw poor in-home coverage as a reason not to cut their home wireline service, to go ahead and cut it now.

Sprint will sell the Airave for $99 and tack on an additional $15/month or $30/month depending on the existing wireless plan (individual vs. family, etc.), providing unlimited calls through the Airave. BGR reports that Sprint femtocell service may only be available to customers who subscribe to an unlimited wireless plan. Unlike similar products from T-Mobile, Sprint’s Airave does not utilize Wi-Fi. Rather it uses the CDMA technology present in all of its handsets, meaning any existing Sprint customer will be able to use an Airave, not just the ones with a Wi-Fi enabled handset.

wireline substitution

University of Kentucky Drops Dorm Landline Service

Femtocells to Accelerate Wireline Substitution?