Phillip Redman

This week, AT&T announced its plans to allow customers to call a predefined group of numbers, both in and out of the AT&T network where the call won’t count against their buckets of minutes. Called the “A List,” this was in response the Verizon Wireless’s adoption of the “Friends & Family” program earlier this year from the Alltel acquisition.  Even Sprint announced this week”Any Mobile, Anytime”  which on certain plans, allows unlimited calls to any mobile on any network (at anytime!).  All of these are available for both individual and corporate users.  Expect for AT&T.  Evidently corporate users don’t make the A List.

I talk to corporate IT buyers everyday.  They have a hard job.  This year it is more about taking, in the form of cost cutting, than giving.  Cellular companies only make it harder on them when they have an offer that anyone can walk into the store and get, except corporate IT buyers!  AT&T once had a great product called “Rollover” which let all users add unused minutes to next month’s allotment.  They took this away from business too.  Now many businesses have moved to pooling plans, which make sense, so losing Rollover wasn’t huge.  But it is another example where businesses that spend almost twice as much per user on wireless, get treated worse than the average person on the street.  Companies want to save money as much as the individual.  Business users subsidize the airline industry through higher fares, are they subsidizing the cellular market too?

Let’s hope AT&T rolls out the red carpet and puts corporate users on the “A List” soon.