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TheBuzz
Erika Engle
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Honolulu not tops in Verizon Wireless call volume -- not even close
HONOLULU does not rank among the top cities when it comes to wireless phone usage, at least, in a study of
Verizon Wireless customers.
That may seem inconceivable, considering the volume of folks you see with cell phones practically Borg-assimilated onto their ears, or with those wired or wireless earpieces.
On the Net:
JD Power and Associates news release announcing results of wireless carrier call quality survey:
Wireless survey
The CTIA-The Wireless Association:
» www.ctia.org
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Verizon Wireless conducted a call-volume study among its customers nationwide earlier this year and found that its users in Miami make and receive more calls than customers in any other U.S. city -- to the ringtone of an average 298 calls per month. That's roughly nine to 10 calls each day, which doesn't seem like that many.
Perhaps even more difficult to imagine is that customers in Los Angeles ranked second, averaging 260 calls a month. The City of Angels was followed by Detroit at 252, El Paso, Texas, at 251 and Las Vegas, where the monthly call average was 235.
New York City and Chicago, which are among the largest markets in other industries such as television and radio, ranked at No. 11 and No. 24 in the Verizon Wireless study.
The results show Honolulu clustered among 21 cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., where customers average fewer than 200 calls a month.
Whaddayawanna bet the Hawaii call volume spiked sharply among all wireless carriers during Tuesday's traffic tribulation?
Tom Pica, a Verizon Wireless spokesman, said the study was done to get "a snapshot of how customers have come to rely on the service all over the country."
According to CTIA-The Wireless Association, there were 207.9 million wireless phone subscribers in the United States by the end of 2005. Total wireless industry revenue grew to $113.5 billion in 2005, up 11 percent from $102 billion in 2004.
About 8 percent of U.S. households are wireless-only, meaning they no longer use landlines at home, according to Joe Farren, a spokesman for the industry association. The number is growing, "certainly not exponentially, but steadily."
Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless scored well in a report on wireless call quality performance released yesterday by California-based JD Power and Associates.
JD Power surveyed wireless users and rated Verizon Wireless first in three U.S. regions, T-Mobile and Alltell highest in two regions and U.S. Cellular tops in one region. The survey was based on customer experiences with static and interference, first-attempt connections, voice distortion, echoes, dropped or disconnected calls, and immediate notification of voice mail and text messages.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4747, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at:
eengle@starbulletin.com