Number port stats suggest curious trends in iPhone 3G launch
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jul 22nd 2008 1:54PM
posted Jul 22nd 2008 1:54PM
Sure, Apple alleges to have flipped over a million iPhone 3Gs at this point, but what does that mean? The devil's in the details, as always; yes, true, the first one took 74 days to reach that same milestone, but it was available in less than one-twentieth the number of countries and an even smaller fraction of carriers. Hell, the very definition of "sale" is under scrutiny here, with some suggesting that Apple's making reference to the number of phones it's sold to its carrier partners, not end users -- a metric that would make sense from Cupertino's perspective since Apple's payday technically ends there.Here's where it gets interesting -- Engadget has obtained a handful of stats regarding number ports in and out of T-Mobile USA handled by a national wholesaler. Specifically, we have data surrounding the launch of the first-gen iPhone and the iPhone 3G, and get this: of more than 1,000 ports in total, ports to AT&T represented under 40 percent of the firm's total outflow in the days surrounding the 3G's launch, versus nearly 70 percent the last time around. Furthermore, they took roughly the same number of inbound ports from AT&T during the same period, meaning that T-Mobile effectively lost no net ground due to the 3G's launch. Granted, the porting stats from a single wholesaler represent just a microcosm of the big picture, but even accounting for some loss of precision when you extrapolate that data, you're looking at a pretty significant downturn in interest from T-Mobile subscribers. We still think Apple's probably laughing all the way to the bank either way -- and iPhone 3Gs are sold out virtually everywhere right now -- but you've got to wonder if AT&T's not freaking out a little bit at the number of new subscribers it managed to entice, and whether its competitors are all breathing cautious sighs of relief at some surprisingly reasonably churn rates.
T-Mobile USA is the other major GSM operator in the US. Could it be that T-Mobile users are waiting to see if T-Mobile picks up the iPhone for their network? There would be no reason to jump to AT&T if that's the case.
Now Sprint and Verizon users, on the other hand ...
I know several Sprint users that jumped to AT&T for the new iPhone. Perhaps looking at THOSE ports might yield a different result.
If T-Mobile users are waiting for the iPhone they are retarded because the iPhone will be exclusive to AT&T for 4 more years.
The iphone exclusive to at&t for 5 years so they will be waiting awhile for T-Mobile to pick it up.
The only people waiting for T-Mobile to officially get the iPhone are those who know absolutely nothing about the cellular industry.
If the T-Mobile users are expecting to able to have an iPhone on T-Mobile's network (in the US) then they will be waiting a long time. Apple would need to develop a NEW phone to work on T-Mobiles incompatible 3G network. The odds of that happening are pretty remote.
Rumor has it that the first iPhone aka iPhone EDGE as I officially call it, was designed with a network with full EDGE in mind, as well as a Wi-Fi network base, so it could really be the phone to connect EVERYWHERE.
T-Mobile was that network. Has an EDGE service speed 30-50kbps on average FASTER then AT&T's so called "Fine EDGE", and at the time, a Wi-Fi network all over. Recent changes to "Starbucks" T-Mobile agreement means T-Mobile never fully owned the hotspots, nor planned to, as their 3G HSPA is launching at HSUPA 7.3mbps, killing the need for "hotspot" technically.
The problem with the T-Mobile plan, T-Mobile is much smaller in the USA then AT&T, and while its EDGE network was larger, its coverage area natively smaller Launching a phone that does everything on a small network was suicide for both T-Mobile AND Apple, customer churn would have been great, and income from the phone to T-Mobile would be minimal to offset the cost of customers leaving.
Apple was greedy and wanted more money, and AT&T could deliver and afford to easily hand over 40% of revenue, even if their network was mainly GPRS, and slower EDGE, and lacked an "all-over" aspect HotSpot. Customers dont care HOW fast it is, just if they can get "comparable coverage at reasonable speed" for what the phone is claiming to do.
While FINE EDGE isnt all that, its comparable to the EDGE T-Mobile had, and it was the GPRS and voice coverage that were more beneficial to AT&T customers over T-Mobile. Not saying T-Mobile coverage sucks, but it does lack roaming into 850 areas where "native" T-Mo coverage should be offered....making it worthless for roaming in fringe areas.
I hope this makes SOME sense.... It did when T-Mobile and AT&T and Apple reps ALL explained it to me.
As for 3G - I see no need in extending a contract
(which shouldnt have been granted in the first place for a non-subsidized phone they REFUSE to unlock.... its like leasing a car, but never getting the option to buy, or get the keys to the gas tank, expected to pay full price for the lease),
for a phone that does a little more then the original. Ironically, stats show it to be THICKER by .02 MM over the original, where people are thinking its THINNER is beyond me. The GPS sucks on it, cant do turn by turn, and while HSPA is nice and fast, its lacking some serious benefit like Video Share, TV/RADIO - something Sprint has on its EV-DO.
If the iPhone 3G wants to be noted for being successful, it needs to be shown that over 1 Million people in the original launch for the iPhone EDGE countries is met with the 3G version after 74 days. And I dont mean, how many sold, but how many continued service after 30 days.
Guys, I've seen this misconception several times on this site:
The iPhone is NOT exclusive to AT&T for 5 years. Apple signed a 5-year contract with AT&T, but only 2 of the years are exclusive.
So AT&T will continue to sell the iPhone (or whatever models replace the iPhone) until at least June 2012, but other carriers in the USA will be able to offer it starting June 2009.
@DTemp: I assume you can back that up with real proof. Where?
Some folks are intentionally making a big deal about nothing. apple is trying its best to meet demand across the world. Most places are out of phones. What more do you want. Would not be surprised if we are at 3 Mil now.
hah, he said "we"
One thing to keep in mind is the type of subscribers AT&T is bringing in... They're likely losing non-data (high end) subscribers and they are certainly bringing in high revenue subscribers (since iPhone requires a 3G data plan).
This whole post is flawed
- a mystery wholesaler from T-Mobile giving accurate stats on ATT/Apple flag ship product, yeah right.
- based on only 1,000 ports?
- info of such a small base compared to the exact small base last year?
For all we know all those incoming T-Mobile accounts were people using unlocked 1st gen iPhones sold by people upgrading to 3G/
@andrew - word.
Let's extrapolate a tiny amount of data to an enormous conclusion!
You can't nitpick about "only 1000 ports" being used to draw a conclusion- pretty much every survey samples around 1000 people because that gets good accuracy and still allows for easy-to-use distributions to describe the data. A bigger problem (which you mention first) is that we're only taking data from one T-Mobile distributor.
The biggest problem is that you only tell me that the percentage of people porting from T-Mobile to AT&T is lower than it was last time. How did it change in absolute terms? Had there been a trend of people porting less to AT&T now than before? I also would imagine that people porting to T-Mobile care much less about data and, therefore, probably have lower monthly payments than those who ported away from T-Mobile. None of this is answered by the one random wholesaler.
1000 samples is good if you're using a simple random sample. I want to say this is a sample of n = 1 store, not random at that.
@mac404: You're mistaken about being able to draw a conclusion from this sample. Yes, a sample size of 1,000 is plenty to draw a statistically meaningful conclusion, but what you're missing is that it MUST be a truly RANDOM sample of the entire universe that the conclusion is being drawn about. This is not a random sample. We have no way of telling whether it's representative of the wider picture at T-mobile or not. So it's insane to try to draw conclusions this way, and it's ignorant of research methods to pretend that any 1,000 results (of unknown origin) can accurately say anything about the bigger picture.
I think the stats are going to be a longer term transition overall, and a fairly large number of people also probably are running two plans right now in order to get in on the fun early while still avoiding the dreaded $175-200 ETF's. I know that the two iPhone 3G's in my household are secondary lines, since it's a lot cheaper to burn the last 3 months of a T-Mobile plan than it is to pay the ETF.
Once Apple has a steady pipeline of product to store, I think the off-contract switching will get more intense.
Actually, since T-mobile just jacked up their SMS costs, current subscribers can terminate their contracts without the ETF.
Actually, you can only cancel over the SMS price increase if you don't have a SMS package on your account, as it's only the price of SMS outside of plans that is going up.
I got to say it once and again. Lets just forget about right now who has the best network or better 3g coverage to switch to ATT, but the main concern why people don't get the Iphone is not the phone the phone is a nice device but is just the amount of money you have to pay to have the phone for 2 years. If you think about how the economy is right now in the USA people have more important things to worry about right now then get a nice phone and pay minimum $90 a month thats with unlimited txt, data thats minimum, if you just want voice with data is $69.99. Remember when the first Iphone came out how many people bought the Iphone to unlock it and take it to other countries or use it here in the USA with tmobile. Looking at USA plan prices is not that bad compared to Mexico or other countries such as it was with Canada. In Mexico they even started a website to boycott Telcel the official carrier of the Iphone, people all say they like the Iphone 3g but won't spend much money. In Mexico the cheapest plan is about $46 a month but only 200 minutes are included 100mb and 100sms. The Unlimited plan which is not so unlimited includes 600 minutes unlimited internet 300sms for a total of about $140 a month. Thats a big rip off considering people make about $10 a day of course except the rich people.
huh?
The lack of punctuation and how badly written that post is sure constitutes what the poster above me said. Huh?
Who the eff makes $10 a day? Minimum wage is $6.55 (starting tomorrow). If someone works 7 hours a day, they made $45.85. Take out taxes, SSI, etc. and the take home pay is around $30. That's three times the stated $10/day, which must make them the "rich people".
Of course, based on your grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, etc., you might only be qualified to make $10 a day. Perhaps you would be better off buying some English skills with your money rather than a cell phone.
He was referring to people in Mexico.
I'm guessing that Sprint will lose the largest percentage of its subscribers to the iPhone 3G launch, followed by Verizon Wireless
That's very likely. The Mogul is pretty weak and the Instinct is not only lousy, but unavailable to most potential subscribers (Sero or non-Everything subscribers). The lack of a single really good smart phone with a reasonably priced plan has got to be killing Sprint. I, for one, don't use many talking minutes. What I do use is lots and lots of data, email, and SMS. For $100 a month I can either have an iPhone... or an Instinct. As far as I'm concerned, the winner is clear (even if AT&T's coverage is crap compared to Sprint).
Veraxus -
The Mogul is a little long in the tooth - totally agree. Still a great phone though. But, the price of the Touch just dropped to $99 - making it the best deal in America for a nice smartphone. HTC just released the new Rev A ROM w/ GPS (unofficial ROM's have been available for awhile now).
Throw in the recent FCC filings for the Diamond and Pro CDMA versions and I'd suggest that Sprint will have the best smartphone offerings in the market in the next few months.
I just signed up with Sprint a few weeks ago. Get 500 minutes, unlimited data, unlimited texts, + free NW. All for $30 + $99 for the Touch. I can tether for free with one click to my laptop. Try doing that with an iPhone and AT&T.
My cost of ownership vs the iPhone over 2 years will be almost 1/3rd that of a comparable plan with AT&T.
at veraxus the cheapest SE plan that you can have for the Instinct is $69.99 thats 450 minutes unlimited everything probably you don't use much minutes or sms but they are included. Not to mention unlimited nights at 7pm and better 3g coverage so if price is your reason going to ATT thats questionable since ATT and VZW are the most expensive.
One mistake there - Sprint coverage is at the bottom of the barrel. Although they're "nation wide", they have very little in rural areas, and even in major cities they have shallow coverage, with lots of minimal coverage and weak points.
The leaders in coverage are AT&T and Verizon, followed closely by T-Mobile. Since Sprint is dumb enough to not merge technologies with Nextel, its two uncoupled networks are at the bottom of the barrel.
I am in Canada and just switched to Rogers with new numbers. I waited for a week before porting over my old Telus numbers to Rogers. So, by that account if I hadn't done it the day of the launch Telus would assume that I didn't get an Iphone. These statistics and numbers mean virtually nothing about the impact the iphone will have to a company that doesn't carry it. The bottom line is carriers had the opportunity to participate with certain conditions. Some saw the light and said we can step out of litter box. Others scoffed and said no way will this make any difference to our business model only to now realize the box they are in needs to be emptied and filled with new ideas and business models.
@Veraxus: I disagree. The Mogul is certainly no iPhone, but it's a very capable phone. Great battery life, slide-out keyboard, fast EVDO REV-A, voice dialing (even better if you add MS Voice Command), built-in GPS, stereo bluetooth, tethering, micro-SD expansion... It has quite a few features unavailable on the iPhone, provided you're willing to put up with Windows Mobile (granted, it's pretty awful).
In terms of plan rates, I was lucky enough to get in on the SERO plan, and i'm paying $30/month for more that I would get with AT&T for $90/month (500 minutes instead of 450; 7PM nights instead of 9PM...)
This is one happy Sprint customer that AT&T is not going to get anytime soon, no matter how strong my iPhone envy is.
Well, I bought the 8GB model on launch day since it was literally the ONLY phone the AT&T store had in stock. The sales guy told me they'd "for sure" have 16GB phones in stock by the 21st, and that if I got the 8GB now (and thereby officially switch from Sprint to AT&T), I could just exchange the phone for the 16GB model when they had them back in stock. Well, as of this morning the AT&T store hasn't seen hide nor hair of ANY new iPhone shipments. That's 11 days since launch and counting down to the 30 day exchange window. That said, it really looks like Apple isn't shipping any damn product. I'm sure part of the reason port stats weren't better is because there just aren't any phones to be had for carrier switchers... they're all being bought up by current iPhone users.
You are the definition of "sucker". So you went by the word of a sales person at an AT&T store? HAHAHAHA....please...the word of any sales person at a cell phone store is as good as asking advice from a stale dog turd.
That's why I always tell people there's no way to know what we're getting until the truck is actually unloaded.
You didn't really believe that AT&T didn't have ANY of the dozens of others models in stock on the day you got roped into an Iphone, did you? If you were just interested in switching carriers, why go on that particular day? Admit it, you went because you wanted the Iphone! I admit it, I want one as well. But I'm hoping for something else to catch my attention by this Nov. when I'm up for renewal.
You're all idiots, the reason for the difference..... could it be that almost everyone who would switch for the iphone already did when the first iphone came out. I doubt the 3g model would have people jumping up and switching carriers when they are practically the same phone with really 2 differences in them. So why would people switch for a product that's not really new at all. The jumpers have already jumped a year ago. So I repeat... you're all idiots.
Not exactly... a lot of people are enticed by the cheaper price of the Iphone and can afford $200 vs. the $600 original model. This will have more people switching at least when their contract runs up.
The smart people knew to wait until the second version of the iPhone hit... and if you waited for that year you are alot better off buying the new one for half the price, a nicer case, and a better data service.
This is almost certainly not the case. I just got my iPhone 3G, and i didn't get one when the first one came out. Reason being, i was only halfway through my Verizon contract at the time. Since it ended shortly before launch, i "made the jump." I know a couple other people in that same boat. And, having stood in line for 2 hours, i got to know my line buddies decently well, and 1/2 of them or more were ditching their non-at&t service, and half of the people with at&t service were new to the iPhone. So that makes 3/4 of the people in line with me getting iPhone 3G as their first iPhone. In addition, i know several other people who's first iPhone is the 3G. So, you are an idiot.
actually, you're the idiot - People who are with ATT already upgraded, the newcomers are due to the $199 price compared to the 499 and 599 price of last year - Apple among others have already stated most of the new business is due to the price drop.
If 3/4 of the people are new iphone users and switching from other companies then how come the stats don't show that. And also considering most remarks are from people who say that most people waiting in line were iphone users already. Hmmmmmm....... you obviously can't count. Check it out, people are not switching to att nearly as much for the iphone. Now if you read my original comment you'll see that I do know there are some who have. BUT MOST... again... MOST jumpers have already jumped when the first one came out. I didn't say all, if you could read you'd know that. and that's why the port requests are not nearly as high as they were last year. So umm, you're an idiot cause one, you can't count and you can't read.. so sad what our educational system has done to us.... such a shame.
I decided to give the industry (specifically Sprint, but i watched the other major players too) a year to see what their response to the iPhone was.
Now, a year later, I own an iPhone 3g, namely because the other manufacturers' "responses" were laughably pathetic and a little depressing.
So no, everyone's not an "idiot" - you just confuse your personal assumptions with "facts".
Apple using numbers of units sold to carriers would be highly misleading. That number would have been true even before launch. The timing of the announcement seems to imply units moved to end users. The point of the announcement is for investors to see how fast they move. Misleading in this way would seem to be improper.
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Why does my 3G IPHONE have several Dead zones and a VERY weak 3G signal here in The Silicon Valley where it was born??
Funny thing is that if I turn off the 3G the signal then skyrockets!
WTF!!!???
I checked the forums and it says I have to turn off 3G to get good Signal??
WTFF??
THis is rediculous! I refuse to pay HIGH service fee's for this crappy service.
I'm returning this overpriced - Feature lacking Phone today!!
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You go girl!
ooohhh snap!
People who voted down this comment are absolute morons! Dumbasses, to be precise. They really believe that ATT has more bars at more places, just because it says so in the commercials.
You are absolutely right. There are several dead spots in Silicon Valley. ATTs 3G is just horrible. I still can not conclusively say whether its the iphone or the 3G network, becuase I seem to drop calls whenever the phone switches from 3G to 2.xG.
I should also add that I was using an unlocked 1st gen on T-mobile so far. I switched to ATT to get the 3G, but I regret now. Well, I may switch back when Tmobile gets 3G, whether or not the iPhone is compatible with its 3G network.
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SO Can I really Switch my 3G iphone to TMOBILE??? I think it would be worth it since I'd be paying like $40 less a month for basically the same service. Times 40 x24 months = $960 savings - $200 Disconnect fee to jump ships = Still a savings of $760 to switch my 3G iphone to TMOBILE.
Has anyone switched their 3G iphone to TMOBILE?
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Still have to unlock it first.
And on T-Mobile it will be a EDGE only capable phone if you are in the U.S.. T-Mobile U.S. does not use the same frequencies for its 3G.