Wasting Minutes: Cell Phone Annoyance

The International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry (CTIA) has an interesting web page. They claim that consumers are now (June 2008) using an average of 769 wireless minutes per month for an average bill of US$48.54. By way of contrast, in 1995 consumers used an average of 119 minutes and paid US$51.00. This works out to a (42.86 cents per minute - 6.31 cents per minute) = 36.55 cents per minute savings when comparing wireless rates in 1995 to rates in 2008. The 6.31 cents per minute average compares favorably with the 5 cents per minute anytime-rate that IDT is offering over landlines, in competition with AT&T, Sprint, and MCI.

One wonders how much more cost saving can be achieved. Large economies of scales have been achieved through mass manufacturing and the establishment of cell towers providing good wireless coverage in most areas. The competition between Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-mobile is intense. And newer rivals are appearing on the horizon (Cricket, Metro PCS).

A good place to start for greater savings: standardized cell phone and wireless plan features. I am specifically thinking of the time I spend each day listening to slightly different, universally non-informative answer messages when the dialed person does not pick up. They typically run something like this:

"We're sorry, but the person you have dialed is not available. To leave a message, press 1 or simply wait for the tone. After the tone, leave your voice message. When you are finished, you may hang up or press 'pound' for more options. To leave a callback number, press 5."

These types of messages take approximately 10 - 12 seconds to finish. Why not dispense with the message (unless the user wants to record a custom one) and simply play "the tone"? If callers wanted to have a bit of warning, a couple of short, light beeps could precede "the tone". This would save 10 seconds of airtime. As long as everyone knew that '#' provided more options and '5' lets you leave a callback number, why should we be forced to listen to this ditty ad nauseum?

To get an idea of the potential time savings, we note that the average US mobile subscriber is currently a party to an average of 204 wireless phone calls per month. This means that each US subscriber makes an average of 102 outgoing phone calls per month -- 3.4 per day. Assuming 25% of calls require a message (my own personal experience), about 4.5 minutes per month per subscriber of currently wasted time would be saved. This is not only less annoying to the customer, but also more productive, efficient, and potentially cost-saving to the customer, especially for customers with plans that include rollover minutes.

Best of all: no more excuses for putting off that five-minute workout.