Wireless Wave - Spring 2008 - (Page 7)

▼ ▼ CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE We need to innovate when it comes to the customer experience, which will take listening closely to customers and then finding concrete ways to change in response. One BY LOWELL McADAM President and CEO Verizon Wireless common theme throughout this issue is ‘mobile commerce.’ Behind that catch phrase is the phenomenon of people doing increasingly more personal business while on the go – shopping, banking, web surfing, watching over their children – consumer activities not possible via a cell phone only a few years ago. That’s true innovation. And it is what competition has wrought – not just technical innovation, but new ways of people going about their daily lives. All of us compete fiercely day to day to make these new forms of consumer behavior and convenience possible. Yet, as our businesses pursue innovation through separate competitive courses, there are common issues that unite all of us in this industry. These issues are common because they will allow – or prevent – all of us from repeating the consumerdriven innovation of our first 25 years. In January, in this space, I outlined three high-level priorities to address these issues. Starting now, there are specific actions we can all get behind to ensure that our next generation of products and innovation remains truly market driven – not government-driven or driven by technology for technology’s sake: • We need to be vocal in response to those who want to inject regulation when deregulation has worked so successfully. Let’s speak up for a national framework to reinforce that only the FCC is responsible for regulating the wireless industry, and only in areas of public health and safety, and consumer protection if the marketplace fails in this regard. Such a national framework covers all bases for the consumer. And for the industry, it will enable wireless to remain the major eco7 nomic driver that it is. Conversely, a hodgepodge of state rules increases consumer costs and frustrates our industry’s ability to seamlessly serve customers. • We also need to be vocal in pushing for tax reform. Plainly, taxing wireless at a far higher rate than general business is a double whammy for consumers – it’s an excessive burden on their wallets and discourages deployment of broadband services. • We need to renew our focus on tower reform. Government at all levels must be reminded of the direct correlation between efficient tower siting and delivery of high-quality basic and advanced wireless services – services that are mainstream in areas where we can site efficiently. You can’t have one without the other and, unfortunately, the greatest impact could be to rural America. All industry insiders need to ensure that innovation applies not just to products and technical platforms, but to service. Customer satisfaction, by definition, is market-driven. And the market – customers – is telling us it is not 100 percent satisfied with every aspect of our service. We need to innovate when it comes to the customer experience, which will take listening closely to customers and then finding concrete ways to change in response. Our history is one of the great American success stories. History will repeat itself, but only if we continue what works and abandon what doesn’t. We have an obligation to dig into these challenges with some urgency if we are to see on these pages in five years new ways of living wirelessly that we cannot even fathom now. Sp r i ng 20 0 8

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Wireless Wave - Spring 2008

Wireless Wave - Spring 2008 Contents A Letter from Our Chairman A Letter from Our President Pryor Approval The Promise of M-commerce Moving Targets Foreign Service Multiple Choice Legs, Regs, and Wireless Wireless News The Supplier’s Voice CTIA Welcomes New Members Index of Advertisers Roaming with….

Wireless Wave - Spring 2008

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