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Affinity Phones. If you love sports, hate liberals or speak Spanish, there's a cellphone just for you, report Matt Richtel and Ken Belson in The New York Times. There are even cellphones for people who are pretty sure they really don't need one, but want one, anyway. Just in case. What's happening with cellphones, is of course, inevitable: The more cellphones become a commodity -- a utility, really -- the more they are being served up as lifestyle icons, not unlike credit cards. "Why are there 1,000 companies offering affinity credit cards? Why is there a MasterCard for the World Wildlife Fund?" asks Gowri Shankar, svp of Wireless Services Operation, before answering her own question: "Phones are moving from utility to lifestyle."
And so if you'd like to make sure that none of the money you are paying for your cellphone service goes to "left-leaning causes and politicians," then Sienna Communications is for you. Conversely, if you'd like to see part of your monthly bill go to "groups supporting the environment, civil rights and other causes," you might look into Working Assets. For those who don't speak English, meanwhile, there's Movida, which "focuses on selling to Hispanic consumers, including those who ... cannot get a phone plan from a major carrier because they lack a credit record." Movida is available through Wal-Mart stores in California and the Southwest. Then there are the cellphones for those who don't use one much, and for whom a solution is as close as the nearest 7-Eleven, where phones and pre-paid minutes are merchandised "on the shelves near the beef jerky and burritos."
That's kind of amazing when you think about it. It used to be that "only corporations with billions of dollars could afford to buy radio spectrum and build complex networks to deliver phone services. Now, companies with an advertising budget and a market to pursue can start their own service by ordering phones from Nokia or Motorola and reselling network capacity leased at wholesale rates from carriers like Sprint or Cingular." And everybody wants to get in on the act -- Disney (for families), ESPN (for sports fanatics) and even Sean Combs is looking at starting his own service. "The die-hards and fanatics are really the folks we're looking to serve, says Manish Jha, svp of ESPN Mobile. At the moment, "as many as 13 million Americans out of 182 million users nationwide got their mobile phone service from a virtual operator at the end of last year, according to Adventis, a telecommunications consultant, and the number of new subscribers to virtual phone sellers is expected to jump 42 percent by the end of 2006."
Tim Manners, editor
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©2005 reveries.com |
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