Coverage Map Audits Are Needed

Coverage map audits are indeed necessary to ensure accuracy, transparency, and accountability in the cell phone industry. 

Are You A Sucker for Marketing Scams?

Have You Purchased Cellular Service Based on Coverage Maps?

Do You Buy Products Because They Labeled As Green?

Trust the Financial Press & Sell Stock in 2009?

Do You Believe the Nielsen TV and Internet Ratings Are Accurate?

Get Cash For Gold for Only 30 Cents on the Dollar?

Invest in any Hedge Funds of Mass Destruction?

Did You Buy Real Estate With No Equity or Money Down?

Have Anything But the Highest Deductible Health Insurance Plan?

Did You Believe The Iraq War Was For Safety or Money?

Did You Believe These Old Cigarette Ads?

The Best Sales Job in The World

Is Working for a Virtual Company Who is Improving the Wireless World

Job Location - Anywhere in World
Type - Full time or Part Time Contractor for Sales / Business Development  

Job Description - Looking for a sales executive who has relationships with wireless operators, cable operators & regional telecom infrastructure service providers. Full-time or part-time executive will be responsible for licensing our database of cell phone reception problems (dead zones, dropped calls, data congestion locations). Custome data sets are sold on a volume, regional and carrier basis. Target customers include companies who provide regional drive testing, RF testing, network optimization, cell tower installation, distributed antenna systems, cell tower operators and femtocell manufacturers. The executive should have familiarity with competitive data offerings such as Groundhog Tech, Carrier IQ, Nielsen (Telephia), GWS Wireless, AT&T "Mark the Spot" and Root Wireless.
 
Skils
•  At least 5 years experience in the wireless industry
•  Understanding of cellular industry, either from the operator or system vendor side
•  Excellent presentation skills
•  Project management skills is a plus
•  Marketing sense is a plus
•  Fluent in English or one of the major languages
•  Computer Skills: Microsoft Office Applications (Word, PowerPoint)

Company Description - Deadcellzones.com is a consumer-generated map of outdoor and indoor cellular coverage problem locations. The website is dedicated to identifying cell phone dead zones in buildings, homes and outdoors. These are locations where cell phone service is not available, calls are dropped or where network data congestion is frequent.  The website was founded in 2001 and has become the central hub for consumers and wireless to identify network coverage problems.  It is our mission to report coverage complaints efficiently to wireless carriers and mobile retailers through our mapping API.  The company licenses data to the following telecom infrastructure firms for both marketing and operations:  wireless operators, cable operators, distributed antenna, femtocell, repeater, VoIP, broadband and cell phone retailers. The map has a searchable map database of in-building and outdoor coverage problem locations and has been EBITDA positive since 2001.

Send resume, phone contact information and available time for a phone interview to jeff@deadcellzones.com

Walmart & Target Indoor Reception Problems

Does Your Local Walmart or Target Store Have Cell Reception Problems Indoors?

I was shocked to learn after doing some database mining this week that Target and Walmart had some of the most complaints listed in our dead zones database.  Walmart (4,000 US stores) has over 20 locations listed as dead zones and Target (1,700+ US stores) has 15 locations listed as having poor reception in our consumer-generated coverage database.  This can't be a good thing especially for Walmart who recently announced a partnership offering TracFone pre-paid wireless plans.  These retailers are going to sell millions of cell phones yet many of them do not have good cell phone reception indoors.  I am sure we are not even scratching the surface of other Walmart and Target stores that also have horrible coverage.  Ironically, there was only one Best Buy store (1,000 US stores) listed in the database so they must be doing something different with their in-building coverage. 

To submit a coverage problem in a store, first, search our database and find out if your store is listed.  If not, submit the reception problem by dragging a pin into the location of the store on the map.  Cell phone reception can be improved indoors but someone needs to be informed that it doesn't work first! 

Nielsen Buys Telephia

I thought that Telephia was in the business of selling mobile data back to the carriers to help them improve coverage? Obviously this business model wasn't sustainable due to the consolidation of carriers from 8 to 4. Sometimes I question the future lifespan of a company like Nielsen in our "on-demand" world of Tivo's and real data downloads? Extrapolating viewer numbers based on sample data and surveys like Comscore, Alexa, Compete and Nielsen TV Set Top boxes is a scam. Actually, numbers from relevant consumers is the new model in my opinion.

Drive testing and surveying a few thousand mobile users by making direct phone calls to customers seems like another customer survey methodology that is expensive and lacks relevancy. Why don't survey companies source more qualified panelists through web sites like DeadCellZones.com where customers are actually qualified to give feedback. Most survey companies motivate panelists by giving them a reward for taking a survey. If you were a carrier concerned with buying quality customer service data would you rather purchase information from a customer that was angry or one that just wanted a reward.

Micro-targeting customers is possible with the internet and big companies still have a hard time thinking on a smaller scale. Is that a qualified or relevant customer that is worth? The fact that companies like JD Power and Telephia are the current "industry standard" for customer satisfaction is pretty scary. There are hundreds of millions of mobile customers and the fact that these companies only survey may be less than 100,000 users per year is ridiculous. My advice is to survey customers who actually have problems to help prioritize network improvements.