Cricket hopes new rule woos business users

Cricket Communications, successful in convincing residential customers to abandon traditional telephone service for cellular, finds the business market a tougher nut.

It's optimistic, however, that a federal rule allowing telephone customers to keep their numbers even when they change cellular service will provide some help.

Nationally, Cricket found that 26 percent of its customers no longer have traditional land-line phone service.

A full 80 percent of Cricket customers, meanwhile, say they use cell phones as their primary service.

That compares with 18 percent of all wireless customers.

In large measure, the success of Cricket in wooing customers away from traditional service reflects its pricing plan, said Jonathan Weinberg, the company's general manager for its Reno and Boise regions.

For $32.99 a month, Cricket allows customers unlimited local calling.

Longdistance calls cost extra.

That's similar to the pricing consumers know from their traditional service.

"It almost like a super cordless phone," Weinberg said last week.

The model has proven more difficult to sell to the business market, he said.

As Cricket employs traditional advertising media to woo businesspeople and sends employees out to make its pitch at business gatherings, the company hears a couple of objections: For one, most business people continue to believe they need roaming as part of their cellular phone package.

Even for business people who seldom leave northern Nevada, the conviction that they need roaming remains hard to shake,Weinberg said.

On a second issue, however, the company expects to get some help from the Federal Communications Commission.

Because many business people have had cellular phones for years, they're reluctant to switch their service and get a new phone number.

Everything from business cards to client contact sheets need to be updated when that happens.

Congress in 1996 directed telephone companies to provide local number portability .

The issue is technologically complex one analysis says it's among the biggest jobs undertaken by the telecommunications industry in its history but local number portability now is scheduled to take effect this November.

Verizon has led opposition to the requirement, saying it will make service more expensive to customers without providing much benefit.