Competition

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

As you are likely aware, Recon Analytics runs the fastest, largest, most flexible customer insights service in the market. We survey over 200,000 mobile consumers, over 200,000 home internet consumers, and more than 20,000 businesses every year about their experiences and intentions. With our consistent set of questions and our massive sample size, we do not only pick up on small nuances in the changes around how large operators are perceived. Over time, we also pick up enough data to get a read even on the smaller providers.

Starlink has grown significantly over the last few years, and we now have enough respondents on a regular basis to report on this growth as part of our comprehensive data set. Over the last year, we found over 1,300 Starlink respondents who tell us with robust statistical significance about their experiences. *

What do customers tell us?

85% of the respondents are in rural areas, 5% live in suburbs, and 10% in zip codes classified as urban areas. They are mostly white, as we would expect from a predominantly rural population.

Who did they use before Starlink?

Unsurprisingly, the largest groups of customers for Starlink are either coming from small rural providers or have never had an internet provider before.

A full 11% of Starlink’s customers are new to home internet, as they often live in very rural areas. The largest individual contributors to Starlink’s growth are CenturyLink, Spectrum, and Frontier.

How about service issues?

Starlink customers tell us that they experience fewer service outages than cable customers, but more than fiber customers. Starlink customers also tell us that they experience near industry-leading speed consistency with the most reliable router.

Customer-reported Issues in the last 90 Days (arithmetic average of providers)

 Internet connection went downInternet was slower than usualI had to reset Wi-Fi routerDevices disconnected from the network
Starlink30%24%20%19%
Major Fiber24%31%27%25%
Large FWA25%27%27%25%
Major Cable39%34%33%28%
Major DSL33%32%28%26%
153,770 Respondent from 7/7/2023 to 7/5/2024 (Starlink, AT&T Fiber, Verizon FiOS, Comcast, Charter, Cox, Optimum, Frontier, AT&T Internet, Centurylink, T-Mobile FWA, Verizon FWA)

Considering that Starlink is a service that requires a direct line of sight to a passing satellite, these metrics are impressive. Starlink has been able to get 6,146 working satellites into orbit, providing significant capacity and reliability to its subscribers. It has also been able to manage bandwidth, even during peak hours. It is also clear that Starlink’s router is among the most stable in the market.

How satisfied are Starlink customers with their service?

We are also collecting component net promoter scores (cNPS)* by looking at the customer experience in 16 different dimensions. Starlink’s cNPS scores for all the metrics that do not involve interacting with a person are among the best we are seeing in our data.

Selected cNPS categories

 Complete ExperienceEasy InstallationStreaming VideoConnecting/Maintaining WiFi ConnectionGaming
Starlink+42+30+44+37+23
Major Fiber+18+18+22+18+12
Large FWA+40+52+39+36+29
Major Cable-2+8+6+2-7
Major DSL-10+5-6-8-20
149,625 Respondent from 7/7/2023 to 7/5/2024 (Starlink, AT&T Fiber, Verizon FiOS, Comcast, Charter, Cox, Optimum, Frontier, AT&T Internet, CenturyLink, T-Mobile FWA, Verizon FWA)

Starlink provides excellent scores when it comes to the technical delivery of the service. It is very similar to Fixed Wireless Access, in that when it works, it works very well and when it does not work, the service provider makes it easy to return the product within 30 days with either a total refund or only having to pay for services rendered. Furthermore, especially with Starlink, the rural alternatives are generally underwhelming. Most Starlink customers come from DSL providers or other satellite providers that are just not competitive when it comes to speeds and latency. Even though Starlink is $99 per month after $499 plus cost for the equipment, value for price cNPS is a very healthy +19. When you have no other options, even pricey internet looks like it’s worth it.

In all of our technical categories, we see constant year over year improvements of aggregate cNPS scores. The service providers are trying to provide a better service, and customers recognize it.

Starlink needs to improve in three categories: Billing support over the phone, technical support over the phone, and in-store experience.

More selected cNPS categories

 Billing SupportTechnical SupportIn-Store Experience
Starlink-1-3-17
Major Fiber+1-3-8
Large FWA+24+22+29
Major Cable-13-14-16
Major DSL-15-20-27
149,625 Respondent from 7/7/2023 to 7/5/2024 (Starlink, AT&T Fiber, Verizon FiOS, Comcast, Charter, Cox, Optimum, Frontier, AT&T Internet, Centurylink, T-Mobile FWA, Verizon FWA)

Fixed Wireless is the benchmark: Great in-store experience where customers can get the box, generally without an upfront cost, and take it home. Starlink’s in-store experience numbers are very similar to those of the mobile providers that predominantly sell through Best Buy, Target, and Walmart. It’s a channel where salespeople are not that educated about the product and its ins and outs. Fiber providers with a store are doing a much better job. The challenge for Starlink is that due to the heavily rural customer base, which implies a low population density, it is not cost effective to open its own stores. One solution is to invest in having its own salespeople in its third-party retail stores. The other challenge is support. While Starlink has a similarly great cNPS number for having an easy-to-understand bill like FWA, the billing support numbers are radically different. Generally, an easy-to-understand bill is correlated to billing support satisfaction, and while correlation does not imply causation, it is a necessary prerequisite.

Overall, Starlink’s mostly rural customer base is very satisfied. Customers like it despite the above average monthly cost and the high cost to purchase the satellite dish and router. Where things get interesting is that Comcast for Business just came to an agreement with Starlink to offer Starlink nationwide to businesses. In our business survey, where we speak with up to 800 businesses of all sizes, we find that fixed wireless access is making significant inroads with cNPS metrics that are similar to what we see in the consumer space. We are actively looking at the impact that the Starlink/Comcast for Business has on the market.

*We ask if they would recommend component elements of a product or service on a scale from 0 to 10 as a battery of questions and then calculate a net promoter score from it. We subtract the percentage of people who rate it 9 and 10 from the percentage of people who rate it 0 to 6, which gives us the net promoter score for this component.

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

5G fixed wireless access (FWA) is transforming how Americans are accessing the internet. In less than three years, 7.9 million customers signed up with FWA as their preferred internet solution. Recon Analytics interviewed more than 40,000 home internet customers in the first 12 weeks of the year and the results are clear: FWA customers are happier with their service than with service through any other technology. The only thing standing in the way of greater success is more capacity, which is why mobile operators are clamoring for more licensed full-power spectrum.

Chart 1:

FWA is the clear winner across the board

The ranking in Chart 1 makes sense, but is surprising at the same time. The mobile network operators built a very robust offering. FWA is not the fastest service, but under the current usage parameters it satisfies its customers not only on the traditional product side such as easy and convenient installation, a superior router experience, delivering an easy-to-understand bill, and online self-help customer service that people actually like, but also on the service side, ranging from the internet usage categories, to support over the phone and, most importantly, value for money.

It is important to keep in mind that there is a double bias going on with FWA customers. First, the vast majority of FWA customers have the same provider for their mobile service. Customers who are unhappy with their mobile service do not select the same provider and network for their home internet service. Second, there is a survivorship bias. Customers who sign up with FWA typically do this while they are still using a previous service with which they are unhappy. It is very easy and convenient to install and, if necessary, to return the FWA router and cancel the service, so prospective customers give it a try and take advantage of the cancellation poicy if it doesn’t work. We have a hard time finding  customers who try the service and are unhappy with it, but have not returned it yet.

Customer service and connectivity

Chart 1 also reiterates what we have known for a long time: cable companies have poor customer service and need to improve. Telecom providers who are phasing out DSL networks and focusing on fiber provide substantially better customer service. What might surprise people is the strong performance of satellite service. This is mostly driven by Starlink, which is getting successively better over time, as a provider of last resort for many of its customers.

Recon Analytics also asks its home internet respondents every week what kind of issues they experienced with their internet connection. Chart 2 is ordered top to bottom with how often respondents experienced an outage. The most common issue, which was internet connection going down, is at the bottom. Furthermore, it is also ordered from left to right by how often they experienced their internet connection going down.

Chart 2:

As we can see in Chart 2, most of the issues are in one of two groups: internet connection going down or slowing down, and router issues forcing people to reset their router or having devices disconnect from the network.

Cable providers had the most issues in all four categories. Up to 43% of respondents reported that their internet connection has been interrupted, while fiber and FWA customers reported the least problems in this category. The newer, better routers provided by fiber and FWA providers also caused fewer problems compared to the routers from cable companies and DSL providers. One fiber and DSL provider told me that once they went away from sourcing the cheapest router to providing an excellent router, it was a game changer for them. The change reduced customer service calls and churn and improved customer satisfaction, more than offsetting the cost of the better router.

How to create more and better home internet choices

As of right now, the Congress and the FCC have created meaningful competition through up to three new providers with up to four brands in the markets where mobile network operators have been able to launch their service. It is incredible that even though we have seen network speeds for some providers decrease from 200 and more Mbps to low 100s Mbps, cNPS scores have not declined. MNOs still have enough capacity to provide their customers with sufficient bandwidth for what customers describe as a superior experience. Verizon and T-Mobile said that they have enough capacity for 5 and 7 million customers respectively with their initial FWA build. They are two thirds to that goal and will probably reach it by the end of 2024. After that, it will become more difficult and expensive to find the necessary capacity to compete with cable and DSL providers as vigorously as they do today. FWA is the fastest growing segment of the home internet market, while cable subscriptions are decreasing.

The government has three options, but the choice is pretty clear: It can spend $80 billion on various fiber incentive programs (BEAD, RDOF, etc) to bring another provider to markets where there is no provider offering more than 100 Mbps speed. It can take $80 billion from the wireless carriers for more spectrum (C-Band Auction for 240 MHz yielded $81 billion) and get three new broadband competitors in the form of FWA providers. Or, it can do both and create more and better home internet choices for Americans with a net zero cost.

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

The launch of a new iPhone is still the most significant event in the wireless year. When consumers prepare to get their next iPhone, they are also undertaking a major financial decision and are often using that opportunity to evaluate new mobile service provider options. The different wireless carriers are engaging in different strategies for retaining and attracting customers who are getting a new iPhone. AT&T is offering the same deals for new and existing customers with almost every plan. T-Mobile requires customers to either add a line, upgrade their plan or be on their most expensive plan. Verizon is targeting only their best customers and new customers with the best offers.

The results are telling: AT&T’s John Stankey said during AT&T’s Q3 earnings call that AT&T “saw the strongest iPhone preorders we’ve had in many years.” Meanwhile, Verizon’s Hans Vestberg said during Verizon’s Q3 earnings call that “we continue to see muted upgrade levels.” T-Mobile’s Mike Sievert said customers don’t feel they need to take advantage of the device upgrades.

We can see in near real time how the respective carrier strategies materialize in the marketplace. We collected around 30,000 respondents between the iPhone 15 launch and last weekend, giving us faster and more in-depth data on what is happening than anyone else. Based on our data ending, 10/22/23 AT&T has the most iPhone 15 upgrades of any carrier despite being the smallest of the nationwide mobile network operators (MNO). Followed by T-Mobile, who had the lowest upgrade rate in the industry but it’s iPhone sales were buoyed by the highest net adds. They were trailed by Verizon, who is the largest MNO, with the second lowest upgrade rate and the lowest net adds. As one would expect, Xfinity and Spectrum are trailing the MNOs as they are offering significantly less generous device promotions.

iPhone Model Distribution by Carrier
Mobile Make ModelAT&TT-MobileVerizonXfinity / ComcastSpectrum / CharterOtherTotal
iPhone 153%4%6%<1%1%1%16%
iPhone 15 Plus3%1%3%<1%<1%<1%8%
iPhone 15 Pro11%10%8%2%<1%1%33%
iPhone 15 Pro Max15%14%10%1%1%2%43%
Total33%29%27%4%3%5%100%
Source: Recon Analytics Device Pulse   

The premium iPhone is becoming a super-premium product. We can see this with the heavy skew towards the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, Apple’s most premium products. More than three quarters of all iPhone 15s are the two premium versions of the iPhone, with the Pro Max outselling the Pro. This shows the pricing power that Apple possesses as the cheapest iPhone 15 Pro Max was $100 more expensive than the iPhone 14 Pro Max but received a storage upgrade.

Editorial Recon Analytics

By Daryl Schoolar, Sanjay Mewada

During the last week of September, GSMA, along with its partner CTIA, held their annual North America conference in Las Vegas. Given the regional focus of the conference, the news and activity coming from it pales in comparison to the Barcelona version. However, that does not mean MWC Las Vegas is without value. We had several meetings that alone made the event worth attending. Plus, some companies still use the conference as a platform for announcements, while the exhibit floor provides guidance on the state of mobile communications in North America.

Of the major U.S. mobile network service providers only T-Mobile and AT&T had a show floor presence this year, but that did not mean other mobile providers didn’t make their presence know. Some of the operator highlights and messages from MWC Las Vegas 2023 are as follows:

AT&T: The company’s booth was dedicated to enterprise solutions, with connected vehicles occupying significant space. This is fitting given that Hardmon Williams, SVP, Connected Solutions for AT&T, used his keynote session to announce the company is now the connectivity provider for electric car manufacturer Rivian. Hardmon also discussed the frequent software updates of electric cars, which in turn increases the importance of network connectivity to support those updates.

MobileX: The competitive outlook for the U.S. prepaid market should intensify with the announcement by MobileX that it will launch a prepaid service exclusively through a retail partnership with Walmart. The driving force behind MobileX is Peter Adderton who has a track record of launching successful prepaid brands with Boost in the U.S. and Australia. Walmart’s interest in working with MobileX appears to be a competitive move against its online rival Amazon and its recently announced sales partnership with Dish’s Boost offering.

NTT DoCoMo: On the first day of the show the Japanese mobile operator announced it will be deploying an Open vRAN solution using NVIDIA GPU for hardware acceleration. NVIDIA will be supporting both the X86 and the ARM architecture. This is significant, as it not only gives NVIDIA a major Open RAN win, but will help overall create more Open RAN deployment options.

T-Mobile: The established U.S. mobile operator T-Mobile captured the most attention at the show with its announcement of a SIM based SASE offering using network slicing. This marks the first commercial service offering using 5G network slicing in the U.S. T-Mobile’s slicing will go commercial later this year. This is an important step in 5G evolution, helping to prove commercial viability of slicing. To help grow slicing, T-Mobile CTO John Saw announced that the company has made network slicing available nationwide to application developers. T-Mobile also took full advantage of the exhibit floor to show multiple wireless enterprise solutions and to host public sessions inside its booth. It was one of the liveliest spots on the floor.

Verizon: Verizon did not make any specific service announcements at MWC Las Vegas, but it did release a statement at the start of the conference highlighting its progress in transforming its network and the subsequent benefits. Those highlights included fiber network investments, mid-band and mmWave spectrum coverage, 5G fixed wireless access, and cloud-native network transformation. Verizon Business CEO Kyle Malady used his time on stage at MWC to push back against FCC’s plan to reintroduce Net Neutrality, as a solution looking for a problem that does not exist. b

Of the three largest RAN suppliers in the region, only Nokia was on the floor. However, that doesn’t mean the conference lacked an infrastructure presence. Some of our vendor observations from the conference are as follows:

AWS: The company had a substantial presence on the show floor. Booth space was primarily dedicated to meetings and educational conversations regarding AWS’ telecom service provider and enterprise solutions. Digital transformation, and the role AWS can play in helping mobile operators with their transformation remains a strategic interest. Supporting that strategy, Sameer Vuyyuru, head of WW business development for communication service providers, gave a keynote presentation about how mobile operators are using GenAI to improve operations and customer experience.

Dell Technologies: From Dell’s hospitality suite overlooking the show floor the company promoted itself as the best option for operators looking for an IT hardware partner for building cloud-native networks. This includes servers to support Open RAN. Dell also participated in a private network demonstration with Airspan, Dish Networks, and Druid.

Nokia: As a sign of the shifting nature of network infrastructure, hardware specialist Nokia used its time at MWC Las Vegas to talk about software. Its message at the conference was “Network as Code” and participated in the open developer gateway conference held at the show. Nokia was also found at the GSMA booth demoing virtual reality to help drive interest in the mobile API opportunities.

Pivotal Commware: Pivotal Commware continues to focus on how to improve 5G mmWave economics through coverage extension and network planning and management tools. The company continues to make progress in this area indicating an increase in its U.S. deployments and that it is seeing its commercial opportunities expanding beyond the U.S.

Qualcomm: The company showed together with Quectel a 5G cellular module for laptops that can aggregate cellular and Wi-Fi signals. This is a nifty capability that focuses on the best performing link. In addition, Qualcomm continued its tradition of educating analysts about new market developments and technological innovations.

Beyond the specific vendors listed above, a significant percentage of vendor booth space remains dedicated to IoT, FWA, private networks, and indoor coverage solutions.

Realistically the U.S. version of MWC will never rival the Barcelona one. The U.S. version is mainly for North American operators and vendors while the one in Spain is global. That focus reduces participation. Vendors can bypass the show and still meet with customers and prospects. However, this does not mean the show should be written off. It remains a good source for one-on-one interactions and as a mid-year gauge of industry growth since Barcelona.

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

The world’s largest retailer created a unique partnership with Peter Adderton’s MobileX, making the new mobile provider an instant player in the prepaid business.

Walmart is the largest distribution channel for prepaid in the United States. At a minimum, due to its unique partnership, one would expect that MobileX will get appropriate exposure in Walmart stores and placement on Walmart+.

MobileX comes in two flavors: It is using AI to create a personalized plan for every customer or they can sign up for a very competitively priced unlimited plan. The AI plan starts at $4.08 per month with 1 GB of high-speed data, making it the lowest priced plan in the market. The $14.88 5G high-speed data plan is aimed at Mint Mobile, whereas the $24.88 30 GB plan – including Canada and Mexico – is aimed at Straight Talk and Boost Infinite.

The rivalry between Amazon and Walmart is as intense as it gets. Both companies – one being the largest online retailer, the other the largest physical retailer – are colliding. Amazon pushes into physical stores with Whole Foods, Walmart pushes into online retail with Walmart+. Both are eying the mobile market as a market of critical importance.

After Amazon struck a deal with Dish for Boost Infinite for Prime customers, it was only a matter of time – two months to be exact – before Walmart struck back with its exclusive MobileX deal.

Furthermore, one can imagine that Walmart, as the largest prepaid retailer in the United States, needed to broaden its product portfolio. Walmart’s long-standing partner TracFone has languished ever since the legendary FJ Pollak got sick and passed away. Now that Verizon has acquired TracFone, things have gone from okay to worse. TracFone’s share has shrunk and Total, a brand that was launched in Walmart, has been repurposed to be a standalone brand with more than 2,000 retail stores.

Mint Mobile, another up and coming prepaid brand with more than 1.5 million customers, is being acquired by T-Mobile. Boost Mobile, due to Dish’s close relationship with Amazon, has a sudden onset of the bubonic plague in the eyes of the folks from Bentonville, Arkansas. This makes the prepaid market suddenly a consolidated market whereas Walmart is looking for a large number of independent choices for their customers to choose from.

Just in time, Australian maverick Peter Adderton enters the stage with a new way of offering wireless and creating a new choice that is not owned by one of the three mobile network operators. Getting an independent brand like MobileX is a smart move from Walmart as it gives its customers more choice and strengthens its bargaining position vis-à-vis all other partners.

Adderton rose to fame in the United States by launching Boost Mobile. While he sold Boost Mobile in the U.S. to Sprint, he kept Boost Mobile in Australia, where it is the largest MVNO. Being a loud and boisterous voice gives him an outsized social media presence and his operational chops give him the credibility to successfully launch another mobile brand – if he’s done it twice before, he can also do it a third time.

When scouring for hints in the press release the word “unique” stands out. Knowing the players in a market personally allows us to better understand the motivations and actions. Numbers and facts tell you some of the guard rails, but they don’t make decisions; people do with their idiosyncrasies and personal values.

I am finding it hard to believe that Adderton would give up exclusivity, even to Walmart, for a distribution partnership. Such an exclusive retail partnership created an almost 10 million subscriber Straight Talk brand and was the backbone for the remaining 11 million TracFone customers. I personally believe there is more to the story than what is in the press release, but only time will tell the exact terms of the deal between Walmart and MobileX.

With all three mobile network operators increasing prices for their legacy customers, with Verizon and T-Mobile even increasing headline prices, there is an opening for lower price options. The success of Charter and Comcast taking significant share in postpaid is a testament that price is the largest purchase decision factor. Not everyone is willing or able to pay $95 per month for a single line.

At the same time, not everyone lives in the Charter or Comcast territory or has persistent heartburn from past exposure to their customer service on the fixed side. This creates significant opening for independent fighter brands like MobileX, especially when they have the backing of a large retail organization like Walmart. Ninety percent of the U.S. population is within 10 miles of a Walmart store. It instantly solves the physical distribution problem that most wireless brands have as online is just not enough.

Despite a more than a decade push by the carriers, the share of online sales of wireless stubbornly stays below 20%. The percentage of online sales of mattresses is roughly twice as high. At the same time, physical retail is expensive, with the average store costing between $1 million and $2 million to open. When you multiply that by a thousand or more stores, you suddenly are talking about real money.

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

Recon Analytics recently conducted the largest survey run to date to assess whether consumers eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) are actually enrolling and if so, what they are using their ACP funds for.  

We conducted nationwide consumer surveys among ACP-eligible Americans from April 28 – May 5, and August 18 – 27, 2023. We asked 29,141 ACP eligible Americans if they use ACP, and if so for what. 

We were not at all surprised with our survey findings, but some policymakers might be.

Recall that ACP is a program that provides “eligible” Americans $30 per household for internet connectivity.  Who is eligible?  Figure 1 sets forth the categories of citizens eligible for ACP.  These “categories” of low income individuals are from existing federal government subsidy programs.

Figure 1

Of the almost 53 million ACP-eligible households, more than 20 million have signed up. The states with the highest number of consumers receiving ACP subsidies are “red” states Louisiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and North Carolina.  

The program is currently set to expire in early 2024 absent additional funding by Congress.The big question inside the Beltway is whether funding the ACP is a good use of taxpayer dollars.  The ReconAnalytics survey indicates that if Congress is interested in seeing itself reelected, extending the ACP funding might be a good idea.

The Data Says ACP is Working to Close the Digital Divide … Among Republican Voters

When we compare ACP enrollment across red states and blue states (defined by the party who won the last senatorial election in the state) , we observe that the percentage of households which would lose access to the internet is higher in red states than in blue.  39% of ACP enrollees live in Red States and  34% live in blue states.  Members of Congress ignore this reality at their peril.

But what about the enrollees, what are they using their ACP subsidy for?  Consider that the largest proportion of households at risk of losing ACP are ones with school-age children.  No surprise then that our survey reveals that these same households use their ACP subsidy for school work online.

In aggregate, about 55% of respondents who told us they would be unable to access the internet without ACP were white, 16% Hispanic, 12% black, 9% Asian, 6% Native American or Pacific Islanders and 2% were of another race.

Figure 2 – ACP Enrollees by Race, Ethnicity, Age and Income Distribution

Full Time Period     
Income$0-10k$10-25k$25-50k$50-75kTotal
Not able to access the internet w/o ACP36.2%39.2%34.8%28.4%36.2%
Race & Ethnicity Distribution     
White47.9%59.2%57.5%48.9%54.5%
Hispanic18.8%14.1%17.5%15.3%16.3%
Black15.8%10.6%11.0%13.4%12.3%
Asian9.2%7.4%6.7%15.3%9.1%
Native American & Pacific Islander5.4%6.9%4.4%5.3%5.5%
Other2.9%1.9%3.0%1.9%2.4%
Age Distribution     
18-2931.0%15.9%20.5%22.5%21.5%
30-4426.4%21.2%33.6%45.0%31.0%
45-6034.3%40.5%32.9%25.6%33.9%
>608.3%22.5%13.0%6.9%13.6%

In Figure 3, we are looking at the activities that ACP households in general and in Figure 5, ACP households that would lose internet access but for ACP, are engaged in.

We show the data for both survey waves to highlight the consistency of the results over time. The two most used applications for their ACP connections are personal communications and banking, payments, investments and personal finance. In other words, ACP subscribers are using their subsidy to allow them to connect to the Internet and engage in the digital economy, whether it’s paying their bills or buying school supplies for their children.  Almost a quarter of ACP recipients use their internet connection for purchases, more than one in five (22%) need their internet connection for work, one in five (19%) for online education, and one in 8 (12%) to access government programs.

Figure 3: Behavior pattern of ACP-eligible Americans regardless of ACP participation

Figure 5 shows the impact of losing ACP. It also shows what applications really matter to people who critically depend on ACP for their broadband connection.  Banking and financial transactions, education and access to government programs are priorities for these citizens.

Almost half of ACP recipients would lose internet access altogether if ACP were to go away. 

This potential outcome presents a Catch-22: the government has pushed many programs online as a cheaper way to deliver services to low-income Americans.  Due to ACP,  22% of the targeted beneficiaries of this policy are receiving those services.  If ACP goes unfunded, 22% of the the very Americans Congress says it wants to help out of poverty will be stranded.

Seems like ACP is working but perhaps will be so effective, Congress will kill it, but at their peril.

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

One of the key questions around the happiest and unhappiest home internet counties is where they are and what the driver is behind the happiness and unhappiness. Every week, we ask our respondents a battery of questions around how satisfied they are with the service they receive. After surveying more than three hundred and thirty thousand respondents later, we have respondents from 2,368 counties out of 3,142 in the United States telling us are telling us where the happiest and unhappiest broadband customers in the United States and allows us to determine the root cause behind their experience.

Questions that we aim to answer include: Why is home internet service in some places better than in others? Will the famous opening lines of Leo Tolstoy’s book Anna Karenina – “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” –  be applicable here? Are the larger observable trends, where fixed wireless NPS outperforms Fiber – which outperforms cable, which beats DSL and WISPs – be consistent in a granular county-by-county perspective? Does it matter if a county is in a blue state or a red state? Is the size of a provider any indication that the home internet customers in a county are happier or unhappier? Let’s just say that counties do not show the same behavior as Tolstoy’s families: it all comes down to local execution.

Let’s get politics out of the way first: Five of the ten unhappiest and five of the ten happiest counties are in states that are considered “Republican” and “Democratic”, respectively. Neither party’s approach to how they interact with home internet providers has had an impact on the distribution of the ten happiest and unhappiest counties.

Below is a map of the ten unhappiest home broadband counties in the United States with at least 100 respondents to ensure statistical veracity.

Interestingly, all the counties where the unhappiest home broadband customers are residing are rural counties with one exception: Indian River County, FL, the home of Vero Beach. This county, which is largely suburban, has the fourth highest concentration of millionaires on the United States. The population range per county is between 25,000 and 180,000 people. They are being served by between two providers in Barnstable County, MA and 14 providers in Jasper County, MO, which tells us that limited or significant choice is not a driver of unhappiness, especially when all of the counties are served by all technologies from fiber to DSL. Even if we controlled for coverage, we had some counties where there was fiber coverage in every ZIP-code (we did not check if every physical address was covered) like Georgetown County, South Carolina, Indian River County, FL, or Crook County, OR to where almost none of the ZIP-codes in a county, like Barnstable County, MA, were covered by fiber. These type of systemic, technology-driven or industry structural reasons are not providing the answer, despite being commonly accepted truths. In four of the ten unhappiest counties, membered own co-operatives which are typically non-profits were active.

We then looked at the happiest home broadband counties in the United States. The map confounds the expectations of many.

Who would have thought that four of the happiest broadband counties are in the rural South of Tennessee, Alabama and West Virginia? Nine of the ten happiest counties are rural. In six of the ten happiest counties, coops are active, but not in the happiest broadband county, Mercer County, WV. The poster child for municipal broadband, Chattanooga, TN, comes in as the 9th happiest home internet place in the country. The happiest county, Mercer County, WV does not have any coops providing telecom services there. In six of the happiest and four of the unhappiest broadband counties, coops are providing service. The mere presence of coops is providing better services, as the feedback we receive from customers ranges from terrific to terrible. Fiber or Cable coverage is also not playing a determining role.

The other fascinating insight is what is missing from the list: major urban markets. The idea that urban markets get all the investment because they are densely populated and cheaper to service, and therefore have the happiest broadband customers, is just not reflected in the data. At the same time, the rival argument that urban areas are dystopic wastelands with horrible broadband service is equally not supported by the data.

In the end, we found that what really matters is the individual performance of a provider in a given county. Below are the NPS scores for the providers with at least 20 respondents in each county where we had at least 100 respondents overall.

Almost all the providers displayed uneven performance. The same provider that performed very well in some counties performed poorly in others. Cable providers like Comcast and Charter performed very well in some counties. Comcast’s exceptionally good performance made Mercer County, WV the happiest broadband county. Equally, its poor performance in Barnstable County, MA and Whatcom County, WA made them the second and third unhappiest broadband counties. Only AT&T Fiber performed consistently well in the ten happiest counties and was not present in the unhappiest.

Additionally, 5G fixed wireless service did not make an impact on the happiest and unhappiest broadband counties. While in some of the counties there is 5G fixed wireless service, the adoption numbers were so low that they didn’t make an impact on the overall happiness of broadband customers.

Our research shows that every provider is able to do excellent work and make their customers happy. Considering that the nationwide providers engage in nationwide standard pricing, the satisfaction score differences are not driven by low price, but by actual performance. Technology helps, but the key is local execution.  Providers could improve their performance in markets by internally benchmarking their performance and extending best practices throughout the entire organization. Regulators should look at how satisfied the customers of applicants are before the allocate their broadband subsidies to expand services. If they have multiple applicants for subsidies, they should be given to the providers who deliver for the taxpayers, who provided the funds through taxes in the first place.

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

Qualcomm is the quintessential American tech company steeped it engineering excellence. Its genesis was the development of a new wireless standard called CDMA. Initially, it was written off as a failure, often ridiculed by its larger global rivals. It created a niche by getting American mobile providers like Verizon, Sprint and South Korean mobile providers like SK Telecom to adopt its technology. Qualcomm found redemption as the mobile providers often had the best networks in their respective countries, better than the globally dominant GSM standard. It found salvation when a variant of its CDMA standard was adopted as the global 3G standard called Wideband CDMA or to those who still harbored old animosities UMTS. It then became the global leader in 4G by holding most of the patents on the OFDM technology that underlies LTE.

By the late 2010s, Qualcomm that engineered itself through superior technology to unprecedented success was faced with five major problems that no engineering solution could easily fix.

  1. Despite being the premier mobile technology company growth had slowed down as upstarts like MediaTek was gaining market share, first in the entry level, highly price sensitive segment but was closing the performance gap between the solutions of the two companies. Qualcomm still dominated the flagship segment, but MediaTek dominated the entry level.
  2. Broadcom launched a hostile takeover to buy Qualcomm as investors were frustrated with low stock returns. Broadcom was only thwarted through the intervention of the US government.
  3. Qualcomm’s largest customer Apple with the support of the Department of Justice was using the courts as a price negotiation tool.
  4. The Android smartphone market was increasingly concentrating with Samsung and Chinese providers driving other manufacturers out of the market. Former mobile phone giants like LG and HTC exited the market.
  5. The relationship between the United States and China was becoming increasingly hostile. The US government instituted unprecedented sanctions against Huawei and imposed trade restrictions on semi-conductors.

Qualcomm CEOs are engineers at heart, Irwin Jacobs, the legendary founder; his son Paul, and Steve Mollenkopf. While Cristiano Amon is also an engineer has cut his chops as President of Qualcomm by spearheading the diversification of Qualcomm into more business segments and therefore to enable Qualcomm to participate in more growth sectors.

Under Cristiano Amon the company is continuing to focus on mobile and IoT but is expanding into computing and automotive. By doing so Qualcomm has expanded its addressable market from $15 billion to over $700 billion. The impact has been almost immediate. Qualcomm has now a $30 billion design win pipeline until 2030.

How did he do this? Qualcomm purchased several companies to strengthen its position in the respective sectors. It bought Cellwize and Augmented Pixels to improve its positioning in mobile, Clair AIR to strengthen its capabilities in the AR/VR area. But most importantly, Qualcomm bought Nuvia, a company focusing on ARM-based computing solutions and Arriver, a company with particular strength in advanced driver assistance software and hardware. And just a last week, Qualcomm acquired Autotalks, a fabless chipmaker making silicon and systems-on-chip for automotive safety.

The Nuvia acquisition is laying the ground work to strengthen Qualcomm’s core base of computing, just like the acquisition of P.A. Semi in 2008 did for Apple. P.A. Semi focused on low power processors and brought to Apple the expertise to build first the A-series chips that have powered iPhones since 2010 and now the M-series chips that were launched in 2020. If Apple’s success is any indication then ARM-based processors are going to be the processors of the foreseeable future. The power envelope of compute power, electric power consumption and heat generation are not on the side of x86 processors, but ARM-based processors. It could also help Qualcomm to close the mobile processor speed gap between itself and Apple A-series processors and increase the gap between Qualcomm and MediaTek processors. Faster, more powerful processors will also help in Qualcomm’s greatest growth market: automobiles.

Where Qualcomm is most likely to replicate the strong position it has in mobility is in electric vehicles. Qualcomm has created a comprehensive solution for automobile manufacturers called Snapdragon Digital Chassis. It combines safety and connectivity with entertainment, customization and upgradability. It takes the basic lessons of a smartphone and takes it to the automobile. The parallels and similarities as the car becomes essentially a mobile server are striking. Qualcomm is coming into this market at the right time when other’s have laid a foundation for the demand, but Qualcomm has the more comprehensive and elegant solution. Qualcomm has also the opportunity to provide a solution that rivals that of Apple. Apple’s Carplay service is viewed by many car manufacturers as a bear-hug take-over of a large part of the user interface between the drivers and passengers of the car most of the navigation and entertainment interface. Automobile manufacturers are especially sensitive due to the long-rumored Apple project to build their own electric car and Google’s Waymo autonomous car company. The car manufacturers know Apple and Google do not come in peace and do mean harm to them. Car manufacturers have to own the user interface between the vehicle and the customer, but know their solution has to be on-par if not better than that of Apple and Google. Working with Qualcomm gives them a chance to do that and so much more. In addition, while there exists significant brand loyalty for traditional car buyers with more than 50% of owners of one car brand to own a car from the same car brand, this loyalty does not exist when it comes to the switch to an electric vehicle. This levels the playing field and is an incredible threat to incumbents and opportunity for new market entrants. Tesla is the embodiment of this new generation of automobile manufacturers. While Tesla had to pioneer a lot of the systems themselves, the next generation electric vehicles can rely on integrated solutions from a company like Qualcomm. Car manufacturers like General Motors, Cadillac, Stellantis, and Mercedes-Benz as well as BMW, Hyundai, Nio and Volvo are in varying degrees of partnership with Qualcomm. Such an array of car manufacturers and a solution that offers breadth and depth gives Qualcomm critical mass to win the automotive market. Who would have thought three years ago?

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

Inflation has become a top-of-mind concern for everyone, leaving consumers, businesses, and the investment community on the edge of their seats. How are consumers reacting to the largest increase in prices of the last four decades? Which businesses get impacted and does Wall Street come to the correct conclusions?

At the end of February 2023, we ran a module as part of our weekly Mobile Consumer and Home Internet Pulse surveys with 7,110 respondents telling us in which spending areas they would cut back. In a nutshell, people would rather cut back on electricity, heating or car payments than home internet or mobile service.

By far the number one category where consumers are cutting back is dining out. A whopping 50% of consumers are expected to increase their at-home dining and reduce their spending at restaurants. It’s the easiest way to cut back as consumers, now trained in the art of cooking due to the Pandemic, can easily replace an expensive meal with home cooking. At the same time McDonalds is at an all-time high stock price based on cutting their regional sales structure. You can’t cut yourself to growth. Verizon is a cautionary tale of what happens when you cut your regional sales structure and take away the ability to build a deep and wide management bench by having a large number of P&Ls where people can learn the business. Dining out is followed by clothes shopping where 39% of respondents are curbing their spending. It’s not that people will walk around in rags, but the pace of clothing purchases is going down, especially hurting the fast fashion segment. General consumer spending through credit cards was mentioned by almost one-third of consumers as a means to address increasing prices.

Scaling back on streaming services is the fourth most popular expenditure reduction segment among consumers, with 19% planning to reduce their spending on streaming video and audio services. We run a monthly Streaming Content Module that receives over 90,000 respondents annually, in which we explore the streaming habits of Americans. According to our April 2023 Streaming Content Module based on 7,642 respondents, on average, consumers have access to 3.6 subscriptions – 2.5 subscriptions for which they pay out of pocket, 0.6 subscriptions received through a mobile service or home internet bundle and 0.5 subscriptions they get access to through password sharing. In addition, 16% of consumers are planning to cut their cable TV bundle ensuring that cord cutting continues and making the looming death of linear television ever more likely. We are not sure if the TV writer’s guild calling for a strike realizes that fewer and fewer people will realize that no new content is being produced. Some people might even use the lack of new content as a sign that it is time to cancel it all together.

Fourteen percent of respondents were planning to cut back on gas for their cars and on gym membership. Although many people rely on their cars to drive to work, there is a car-use component that is optional and can be reduced as a cost-saving measure.

Only eight percent of respondents are planning to cut back on their home internet and mobile service expenditures due to inflationary pressure, barely more than the number of people who will cut back on health insurance and housing. The difference between subscribers at MNOs is nominal with only 7% of AT&T customers at the low end and 9% of Verizon customers at the high end looking to reduce their spending on home internet services. The numbers on average are even lower for mobile service, with only 7% of T-Mobile customers and 8% of AT&T customers looking to reduce their mobile costs.

For the eight percent looking to reduce their mobile service expenses, their preferred route is to switch to a new provider that offers a similar plan to what they’re currently receiving but at a lower price point. Their secondary choice is to downgrade to a more affordable plan with their current provider. Savings via device discounts also play a significant role among this subset, with more than half willing to switch to a new provider to obtain the best deal on a new device to find further cost savings.

As a last cost-cutting resort, 6% of consumers would scale down their health insurance, rent or mortgage or student loan payments in response to inflationary pressure. Life insurance and childcare costs have the greatest inflationary-resistance, with only 5% of people looking to cut back costs within each category.

Lastly, despite inflation concerns throughout the economy, roughly 20% of respondents have indicated they do not plan to decrease their financial spending. With percentages this low, telecom has essentially become recession proof.

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

The converged communications industry is undergoing significant change. It has been well reported that fixed wireless access has captured most of the broadband industry’s growth, followed by fiber, with cable not adding customers, while DSL gets rapidly replaced. Recon Analytics’ research also shows that a substantial number of fixed wireless access subscribers did not have dedicated home internet access before; hence, it is not a zero-sum game.

Adjustments are common in the wireless industry. An operator buys another operator, customers switch from prepaid to postpaid or vice-versa, new rules on what it takes to continue to be a customer get implemented – essentially, a cleanup of the subscriber base. These changes are typically in the low hundreds of thousands, important but not earthshattering. With the shutdown of 3G networks, we are entering another period where these changes are significant. No matter what we call these disconnections and whether they are included in the churn statistics or not, they still represent a reduction of subscribers in the industry. These adjustments to what is and is not a subscriber and where that gets counted provide valuable insights into the health of the wireless industry.

In the chart below, we are looking at the overall phone universe and see that the two segments have more overlap than what many people want to acknowledge. The orthodox, adjustment-free view shows us solid growth over the last two years and creates the perception that industry growth exceeds population growth followed by exasperated questions of “Where are they all coming from?”

When we look at the impact of the adjustments, a different view emerges. For example, in Q2 2020 there were two significant adjustments: a clean-up of the Keep America Connected disconnects by AT&T and, more importantly, a large adjustment by T-Mobile as part of the Sprint merger. Sprint had created a bit of a mess ahead of the merger and counted people as customers who might really live up to that moniker. It counted some connected devices as phones, didn’t disconnect people even though they were significantly in arrears, and counted prepaid Boost customers who financed a device as postpaid. As a result, 1.9 million subscribers disappeared from the books. The total subscriber numbers actually show a reduction of 900k subscribers despite an “official” 1.3 million subscriber gain. We saw a similar trend due to the 3G network shutdown at AT&T and T-Mobile. What looked like strong subscriber gain quarters were actually flat quarters due to the disconnects of 1.9 million and 2 million 3G subscribers. We will see further adjustments when Verizon shuts down its 3G later in the year.

The interesting implication of the adjustments and their use to net out the official numbers is that the three mobile network operators did not add subscribers in the first half of 2022. The entire growth of the wireless sector comes from the cable industry in the form of Charter and Comcast.

In 2011, Verizon was in a pickle as it could project when it would run out of spectrum and needed to maintain its strategy of being the network leader in the United States. The deal was straightforward: get spectrum from the cable companies in exchange for an MVNO agreement and hope that the cable companies will be as successful as they were in their previous attempts with Sprint, which is not at all. This premise held up until 2017, when Comcast started offering service, followed shortly thereafter by Charter. The two cable operators went to market by positing that they could offer the best network experience for combined mobile and home internet for roughly the price of a premium wireless subscription. Customers liked the premise, and cable providers have consistently been between a quarter and a third of industry postpaid net adds, taking a healthy bite of the wireless industry growth. Examining Comcast’s and Charter’s total market flow share performance, which includes prepaid and postpaid, it becomes clear that Verizon is coming out ahead. For example, during July 2022, based on our Recon Analytics Data services, only 27% Comcast’s and Charter’s customers have come from Verizon. Tracking Verizon’s revenue components for many years, we estimate that Verizon gets an average of $13.13 from its MVNOs per customer, which include providers like US Mobile, Red Pocket Mobile, Lively, Affinity Cellular to mention only a few. A comparison between Verizon’s $18.35 EBITDA contribution and its $13.13 MVNO revenue per customer, which is almost pure profit, shows that Verizon is coming out significantly ahead. For every Verizon customer that moves to Comcast and Charter, three join the Verizon network from other providers, both postpaid and prepaid. The 661,000 Comcast and Charter net adds in Q2 2022 contributed an incremental $41.4 million in overall annualized revenue. If Verizon would disclose more numbers and be more transparent, it could easily dispel the erroneous notion that its wholesale business is a negative for the overall business when it is clearly not. While Verizon’s branded subscriber base which it reports quarterly is under pressure, its unreported network share is performing substantially better. More people are using the Verizon network today than ever before, and its wholesale partners are an underappreciated part of the story.

The headwinds that Verizon is facing are coming from its two main rivals T-Mobile and AT&T. T-Mobile continues to perform well with a “have your cake and eat it too” positioning by marketing a superior network at a lower price value proposition. Considering that it trails AT&T in postpaid phone net adds, we can only conclude that the message could be resonating better. AT&T is leading the industry with a straight-forward consistent promotion strategy for new and existing customers. The lack of fading-in and fading-out promotions that the two other operators are offering is paying off for AT&T. The new AT&T leadership has transformed the company from being the source of everyone else’s growth to being the fastest growing postpaid phone provider in the United States.

To take the fight back to the cable providers and utilize fallow spectrum, T-Mobile and Verizon have launched fixed wireless internet access to compete against traditional home internet providers. With 2.1 million fixed wireless customers between them, they have captured the buzz of the telecom market. With easy to set up wireless routers, straight forward pricing, and speeds around 100 to 300 Mbps, FWA providers are on top of Recon Analytics’ net promoter score list in every one of the 14 metrics we are tracking. What we see in our FWA flow share analysis is that FWA is currently a threat to every other technology, as it captures many disgruntled home internet subscribers who are looking for a different, attractively priced option. The questions are: How long can this last? and From where geographically do these customers come?

The main constraining factor is the availability of fallow spectrum and the usage profile of home internet users. It is not uncommon that home internet users use 500 to 800 GB per month compared to approximately 15 GB for a mobile user, while paying around less than $50 per month for their subscription. In urban and suburban areas, due to the much higher population density and approximately the same amount of spectrum, the maximum amount of fixed wireless customers before they impact wireless user experience is much more limited than in rural areas. In rural markets, fixed wireless access performance is much more driven by cell site density rather than the availability of spectrum. At the same time, rural America has the problem of being by definition rural, which means not a lot of people live there.

Fixed Wireless Subscriber by Urbanicity

Source: Recon Analytics Data, April to August 2022

Both Verizon and T-Mobile have been a lot more successful in urban and suburban markets than in rural markets, which is both an opportunity and limiting factor at the same time. The much-touted transformation of rural connectivity is still a lot more talk than reality. T-Mobile’s new Home Internet Lite plan demonstrates the strain on the network from unlimited plans. It introduces usage-capped price plans in the name of being customer friendly and allowing to be available everywhere. The positioning will be that not everyone needs unlimited data and with a fixed amount of data rather than unlimited data these customers and it allows T-Mobile to charge a higher price per GB in constraint areas. At the same time, it makes T-Mobile closer to the cable companies it derided in the past that have usage caps. It also proves AT&T’s argument that fixed wireless is not a fiber replacement in many places.

The competitive intensity is greater than ever before and the battle ground is larger than before. The battle for market share in this new converged communications provider world has just begun, with the tides of the battle swinging back and forth.

Roger Entner
Roger Entner
Analyst and Founder

In case you are just tuning in, Verizon has been going through a rough time for about two years now. In fall 2021, it replaced Ronan Dunne as CEO of Verizon’s Consumer Group (VCG) as it struggled before filling the position with Manon Brouillette. It would be difficult to say that things have improved.

We live in peculiar times. For a long time, financial analysts wanted to convince us that when a mobile network operator (MNO) has a larger size than its competitors, the size advantage gives them a substantial edge in the market. Now, other financial analysts want to convince us that Verizon, because it is the largest provider in the market, is destined to lose customers for the foreseeable future. I disagree with both positions but would point to having a good plan, the ability to rapidly adapt to new circumstances, and superior execution to being the only sustainable competitive advantage in the market. 

Verizon has traditionally differentiated itself as the premium provider in the market based on superior network performance. Taking network leadership to heart, Verizon charged ahead in 2G, 3G and 4G and created the fastest and largest network for at least the first three to four years of what is generally a seven-year technology era. The shock and awe of the early, rapid build created a nimbus of permanent network superiority even though, at least in urban markets, by year five, we had network parity. In contrast, in rural markets the network superiority persisted.

For the last decade, Verizon has internally fretted about what it should do if and when this trick would no longer work and its network superiority nimbus would be diminished, or even worse, large swaths of customers would perceive network parity or, even worse, someone else to have the better network.

Several poor decisions and outcomes around spectrum auctions weakened the strong network foundation. Verizon seems to have then tried to replace the internal differentiation of being the provider of the undisputedly best network with having the best streaming bundle and differentiating around that.

Replacing an internally generated differentiation with an externally acquired differentiation, especially when it is so easily replicable, is a dangerous gamble. To make this decision even more puzzling, Verizon engaged in the content-differentiation strategy at the same time when AT&T exited the content bundling with wireless.

AT&T and T-Mobile having seen the 2G, 3G and 4G outcomes decided they didn’t want to live through the same experience with 5G and put a lot more emphasis on network performance. While in Recon Analytics Data weekly net promoter score data, Verizon still leads in the network performance categories, the gap has undoubtedly diminished. Metered speed tests show Verizon being behind, but how much does it matter? In our purchase decision factor ranking, speed is a solid second out of nine metrics.

Especially T-Mobile, powered by Sprint’s spectrum and a greater network focus with various firsts has given Verizon’s network team a run for its money. AT&T has been more judicious in spectrum expenditures and build-out pace betting that speed test results alone don’t win customers and aligning its build-out more with customer and technical capabilities and usage. The slower build-out has not hurt AT&T’s success in the marketplace because it was able to execute on other purchase factors that existing and prospective customers find important.

Verizon’s recent promotion

On May 22, 2022, Verizon launched an online promotion where single-line customers would get $15 off, two-line customers $12.50 per line off, and three-line customers got $5 per line off. Since Verizon did not issue a press release around it, it was largely unreported.

We took it as an opportunity to test Verizon’s value proposition of all plans – 5G Start, 5G Play More, 5G Do More, and 5G Get More – against what the customers of the other providers, ranging from T-Mobile and AT&T to Google Fi and Mint Mobile, were willing to pay for the different plans for a different number of lines. This gave our clients one week later a read if they should worry, to what degree, and about what part of Verizon’s promotion they should be worried about.

Below is how just T-Mobile customers were viewing Verizon’s single-line plans and for what price they would switch to the plan. While this is no sophisticated conjoint pricing analysis, it nevertheless gives some interesting insights. It also does not consider larger long-term pricing strategies that a company like Verizon would have to consider when making pricing decisions. The yellow shading represents the take rate at a given price point, while the magenta line represents the revenue that would be realized.

With the promotion, Verizon charged for a single line $55 for 5G Start, $65 for 5G Play More, or 5G Do More, and $75 for 5G Get More. As a reference point, Verizon just launched Welcome Unlimited for $65 for a single line for a skinnier offer than 5G Start.

T-Mobile customers’ highest revenue price point was $40 with a 64% take rate for 5G Start vis-à-vis Verizon’s $55 promotion. 5G Play More and 5G Do More were valued at $50 with 55% and 64% take rates respectively while Verizon was charging $65. Verizon 5G Get More plan discounted to $75 during the promotion was also valued at $50 with a 73% take rate.

Analyzing the data as in the above example vis-à-vis T-Mobile, it became apparent that in the one-line segment, the Verizon promotion would not save Verizon’s quarter. The numbers for the other providers for single-line customers were roughly similar to those of T-Mobile customers.

Interestingly, despite being the least generous, the three-line offer was the most competitive for several of Verizon’s offers. This brings us back to Verizon’s new Welcome Unlimited plan. It looks like a significant uphill battle to convince single-line customers to spend $65 per month when only two months ago, at least T-Mobile customers thought it was only $40 worth.

As I mentioned before, customers of different mobile service providers and for different line counts value Verizon’s plans differently, but in the one- and two-line part of the market a similar picture emerged.

Verizon isn’t suffering from a large size that dooms its progress; it suffers from a value positioning, value perception, and long-term pricing strategy issue.