Wireless Technology Changing the Way We Do Business

Three years ago, Ron Coronado, a Chula Vista teacher, took a step not too many people had taken at that time: He abandoned his regular “land line” telephone and went exclusively to wireless.

“I got tired with PacBell,” Coronado recalls. “It was hard to reach them with problems. I was a little bit disappointed with the lack of local competition too.

“It’s very convenient for me to have a phone with me at all times. We didn’t have phones in the classroom. Parents couldn’t call me. And I have more than an hour commute time, so it was advantageous to have a cell phone with me.

“Initially, it was quite expensive, averaging $150 to $200 a month. But rates have come down, and I’m now on a fixed plan [with AirTouch Cellular] at about $75 a month. It’s still more expensive than PacBell, but it’s worth it.”

Coronado’s choice is no longer quite so novel. In 1998, the percentage of Americans using only a wireless phone still was statistically zero. This year, reports a Yankee Group survey paid for by the Personal Communications Industry Assn., it’s 2%. In some countries, it’s already far higher.

And, by the way, PacBell and its parent company SBC are in the act too. They have their own wireless subsidiaries. And PacBell spokesman John Britton insists his company now has good service, having added 1,000 service reps in the last 18 months. Coronado “may have had a hard time reaching us three years ago,” he conceded.

Coronado’s decision points up the fact that price isn’t the only criterion for choosing a telephone service. Convenience, mobility, even security on a dark road at night, can be major factors also pushing consumers toward wireless.

This is worth noting during a week that AT&T; announced a 7-cents-a-minute nationwide calling plan, every day, all the time (but often with a $5.95 monthly base charge that ups the price).

One trouble with cut-rate plans offered by big land line carriers is that they lapse and sometimes you don’t learn about it until you get a new bill which brings you back to the higher prices.

Mark Lowenstein, a vice president of the Yankee Group, says studies in the highest wireless-using countries, such as Finland and Israel, have found that once the cellular price falls below 300% of the land line price, there is a “trigger point” where “land line displacement” sets in.

For the most prolific wireless users in the United States, prices have fallen 60% since 1996, and for average users the price has dropped 40%, according to Lowenstein.

When does it make sense to move to wireless?

Melissa May, a spokeswoman for CDMA Development Group, a digital technology association, points up several personal situations where such a move might be sensible:

* You’re a student. “Even parents are going that route for high schoolers who want their own lines, but are rarely home to use them. You can save the cost of a pager . . . and put the dollars directly into a cellular phone. . . . Some companies offer companion multi-line discounts.”

* You work as a real estate agent or other sales representative. “There are folks . . . who want to be accessible and have given up their land line phones. They have voice mail, call-waiting, call forwarding, conference calling, even e-mail receipt capabilities on their digital phones, so they don’t need to have a wire line phone.”

* You work at home. People who have “either a land line coming into the house for a computer or [use] a cable service for Internet access . . . are realizing that they need another line so they can talk while on the Net or on e-mail.”

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With 78 million wireless users in the United States, the technology has not only caught on big, but the competition in Southern California is fierce among five companies: AirTouch, Sprint PCS, AT&T; Wireless, Pacific Bell Wireless and Nextel.

Meanwhile, reception problems with the new digital wireless phones are fewer. There is less static and fewer interruptions.

I confess that for persons of my own near-senior status, the pace of technological change in telecommunications and the confusion of “deregulation” seem daunting.

It is hard to keep up as we move toward the day when phones, cable, the Internet, e-mail and movies all converge and become always available wherever we are.

But it is pretty exciting, too. New services seem to be offered every month or two by these companies.

At Sprint PCS, for example, spokeswoman Mary Osako notes, “We just launched our Wireless Web, three unique offerings, including a Web browser, updates of news, sports, weather or other information from Yahoo, and use of the phone as a modem to connect the Internet to your laptop.”

By the end of September, the company will offer a $9.99-a-month package including 50 data minutes and 50 updates from Yahoo, which can be added to any of its calling plans of $29.99 and above.

AirTouch intends to introduce wireless Internet access in California by New Year’s Day. And in nine states, including such populous ones as Ohio, Michigan and Washington, it has introduced a “Calling Party Pays” plan where, unlike most cellular phones, the party calling pays the bill rather than the one answering.

AirTouch spokesman Jonathan Marshall said such a system is being blocked in California by the unwillingness of PacBell to agree to bill such calls.

PacBell’s Britton responded, “We do not oppose ‘Calling Party Pays.’ They can go out and offer it. But why should we bill for it? They can bill it or contract billing with a third party. We don’t want to be their billing and collection system.”

Marshall, however, said that Bell Atlantic, US West and Ameritech, big phone companies in other states, have agreed to do what PacBell will not do.

I imagine this will be ironed out, somehow. The underlying fact in the telephone business is that as Bob Dylan’s song once pointed out, “The times they are a-changin.”

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Ken Reich can be contacted with your accounts of true consumer adventures at (213) 237-7060 or by e-mail at ken.reich@latimes.com.