How John Legere changed the mobile phone industry
John Legere took over the unimpressive carrier T-Mobile in 2012 and transformed not only T-Mobile, but the U.S. wireless industry in a few short years. Here are the biggest innovations to his credit:
- He created the “un-carrier” by eliminating contracts for post-paid accounts (no contract pre-paid offerings were already in market).
- He eliminated handset subsidies, shifting the industry to pay the full price of the phone over installments.
- He enabled rapid upgrade options, giving people the option of switching to the latest equipment and valuing trade-ins higher.
- He made international data cheap or free, in some cases, making international traveler much friendlier from a communications perspective.
- He is a self-made social media star.
- He made bashing the competition a standard practice within wireless marketing
- He opened up earnings calls to everyone
Leger has stepped down as CEO of T-Mobile upon the completion of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. CNET
dis-rup-shun: Legere is yet another example of David vs. Goliath. Legere decided to rewrite the rules of an established industry that put T-Mobile in a distant fourth place. He shunned the corporate image and appeared always in Magenta T-shirt and long hair. Last week, by completing the merger with Sprint, he took the irrelevant T-Mobile and turned it into a very solid third-place contender that will challenge AT&T and Verizon in deployment of 5G services.
Meal kit roundup — Blue Apron wins
Wired has assessed fourteen on-line meal-in-a-box delivery services, and has evaluated them on price, food quality, variety and recycle-ability. A complaint across all services is that they generate a lot of waste, so packaging was a consideration. The winner, Blue Apron, was lauded for reasonable price ($7 per meal per person per day), its efficient packaging, and its Mediterranean-style food offerings.
dis-rup-shun: With at least fourteen offerings, it is likely that a competitive shake out will eliminate some of the variety of this segment, but that could lead to the winners offering more variety of choices. Meals-in-a-box could eventually improve the poor eating habits of low income households and middle income food-lazy households, but still require the patience to follow some simple directions and do some prep. For those who don’t feel empowered in the kitchen or don’t live with a master cook (I’m sorry for you), there are no more excuses for eating less then great food all of the time.
U.K. phone towers attacked by those linking coronavirus to 5G
Attacks on four of Vodaphone’s cell phone towers followed social media posts linking coronavirus to 5G technology. British ministers are taking to social media to clear the record on 5G and dismiss any linkage to the pandemic. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: Where there are people, there are conspiracy theories. If you find it shocking that so many ordinary people could have such wild ideas, then you haven’t yet watched Netflix’ Tiger King — a reminder that ordinary people are, well, not very ordinary.
Smart home technology predicted to be in one-half of homes
ProBuilder features an article by smart home platform company Ezlo’s Roger Gregory. Gregory cites research firm Berg Insight’s prediction that 63 million U.S. households will be “smart” in the next three years. Gregory addresses builders by reminding them that smart home technology is no longer a luxury, but a standard offering that actually increases the sale-ability of new homes and increases revenue.
dis-rup-shun: Smart home adoption will follow behind awareness, which is growing, but still low. Gregory does not address one problem of smart home technology, and that is the concerns of a substantial share of the population that smart home are not secure or are offering a big brother the opportunity to eaves drop. Better provisions and better education by the smart home technology industry is needed to minimize conspiracy theories and maximize privacy.