Is Public Mobile $15 Unlimited Plan Worth Switching Home Phone For?

Is Public Mobile $15 Unlimited Plan A Threat To Prepaid Wireless and Landlines?

First Published Date : May 30, 2011 ADawnJournal.com

Looking to capture a chunk of landline and prepaid wireless market share, Public Mobile has aggressively launched a $15 Unlimited Plan campaign throughout its coverage area. However, the question lurking in everyone’s mind is will it be the end of the prepaid and landline home phone? Or, will the traditional home phone and prepaid wire even survive with this $15 Unlimited Plan being available?

Let’s talk about prepaid wireless first. I think Public Mobile will be able to put a noticeable dent in the prepaid wireless market share with this plan. The only two groups of consumers I see still going with the prepaid plans are those who use prepaid occasionally and do not know about this offer or don’t want to go through the hassle of going to a new company because of the use of prepaid on a very limited scale (but not occasionally).

How about the landline home phone? Will it become extinct? I don’t think it will. There are groups of people who will always be reluctant to give up their home phone lines for cell phones. The reason people have a home phone service is because they want something reliable and a physical line, whether it’s a phone line connected through traditional copper wire or a line through cable wire, so they have that mental peace knowing it won’t stop working due to signal issues or other unseen issues like a cell phone. Also, it’s a matter of convenience and reliance having voice messages left in an answering machine physically located at home than somewhere else on cell phone companies’ servers. It’s a lot easier to maneuver the big buttons on an answering machine and home phone than a tiny, hard-to-find cell phone buttons.

One of the groups that would be reluctant to give up their home phones is the baby boomers. Another group would be people who are just into their 50s and not too obsessed with cell phones. People under 40 will be those who are likely to give Public Mobile $15 Unlimited Plan a try, and Public Mobile should be able to put a dent in this group’s home phone market share with their cleverly-designed strategic ads.

For my own part, I do not use a home phone, although I have to have a home phone because of my older parents. My dad can’t press or find the right buttons on a cell phone because they are too small and my mom always flips the cell phone (meaning she puts the earpiece near her mouth and the mouthpiece near her ear) if she tries to make a call. However, if I was buying only for myself I would definitely cancel my landline home phone and save $20 a month with Public Mobile’s $15 Unlimited Plan.