New stories or new friends

At some of our extended family gatherings, some of us have been known to re-tell a old tale more than once. My late uncle used to say that we either need new stories, or new friends.

I was reading about the concern that consumers are having a hard time making sense of the multitude of different plans and options from the carriers, with some of the same voices making the same complaints. The problem is that I don’t think these stories are representative of today’s reality.

Isn’t choice an indicator of a competitive marketplace? Innovation from carriers, trying to help consumers tailor their packages to meet their needs. Sure, it was a lot easier when all phones were black rotary dial models and there were no features to choose from.

But do we all really want vanilla flavoured mobile service?

A recent column speaks of hidden charges and uses system access fees as the example. I’m not crazy about extra fees myself, but the fees are hardly hidden. And, there are choices out there that have no fees: check out Koodo, Fido and Solo, among others.

I have been shopping for wireless services a couple times this summer and shopped by internet, by phone and in person at company owned stores and with agents. This wasn’t hypothetical shopping, but looking to spend my own real money on real services. The complaint I read about not being able to take your old phone with you when you switch between carriers is pretty lame. I suspect my family members are fairly representative of having no interest in being stuck with an old phone.

There were no hidden charges. I was even walked through a check list to make sure I understood my first bill including all the fees, pro-rated charges, etc. Most of the websites let you see a sample first bill.

As to the perspective that only Rogers has all the cool phones, apparently these kvetchers haven’t heard of the Blackberry Tour, the Blackberry Storm or the Palm Pre which are only available on TELUS and Bell. Exclusive contracts aren’t necessarily a bad thing, as I have written before.

As to the tired old claim (I wrote about that one more than 2 years ago) that North Americans suffer from having CDMA and GSM networks, instead of all carriers using one standard, there are others who would see this as offering consumers yet another choice. We didn’t need government to mandate VHS versus Beta; we didn’t need government to regulate GSM over CDMA.

There really are new stories out there, as more than 1.3 million Canadians who activated a phone last quarter experienced. That is, more than 15,000 people each day who are shopping, finding an offer they like, and subscribing to a new mobile phone service.

You need new stories or new friends to stick with the same old stories. Go shopping and you might get both.