How is Vodafone Sure Signal Going To Sell?
Posted by Birchills Telecom on Tue, Feb 02, 2010 @ 03:33 AM
You may have spotted a rash of new Vodafone posters across the UK. If you haven't this is what they look like ...
What has happened is that Vodafone has rebadged its Access Gatewayas Vodafone Sure Signal after it failed to sell first time around. The posters are selling a device that allows users to improve their signal by plugging a box into their broadband line.
The box called a Sure Signal costs £50 for price plans of £25 or above and £120 for price plans under or you can rent it for £5.00 a month. Users must have a broadband line of 1mbps or more. Four handsets can use it at the same time.
So the deal is that, should you so wish and you are a Vodafone subscriber, you can pay for the Sure Signal, pay for the connectivity via broadband, pay for the electricity to run it and then pay Vodafone all this because Vodafone don't want to invest any more to do what the network is supposed to do.
So the logic is questionable in the first place but I do wonder even more at the advertising campaign. Vodafone are using posters which show people hanging out of windows because the Vodafone signal is so weak. Inevitably because they don't have many posters in the countryside these posters are in towns, and guess what Vodafone have quite a good signal here. So they are advertising a product to the odd country bumpkin who may happen to drive his tractor past and think "Wow! I can pay Vodafone more money to get the signal I'm already paying for."
I understand the reality which is that Vodafone have spent a fortune developing this femtocell, which is what the Sure Start is, and because of that now some marketer has to force himself/herself to take away even more of Vodafone's money to sell the unsellable.
I don't think it has to be this way. If I were Vodafone I'd target my advertising at the areas where they already know the signal is weak and then let people have the boxes for as long as they have a contract with Vodafone - free. We know that on average it costs Vodafone about £350 for each new subscriber and the boxes can't cost that. So Vodafone get more subscribers who don't use Vodafone's band width and Vodafone sells phones to people who wouldn't buy them otherwise. Best of all Vodafone looks like a caring company, expands the number of users and makes more profit.
Oh isn't capitalism wonderful!
David Hill - Chairman of Birchills Telecom