Landline replacement as a service

Considering how many people are foregoing a landline phone in favor of wireless, I've been thinking that there's an opportunity for a wireless operator to create an offering specifically positioned as a landline replacement service. Executed properly, perhaps such an offering could even command a price premium above conventional cellular service.

A key enhancement would be to take some extra measures to improve service quality — perhaps using minimal compression so that a phone number left in a voicemail message has a strong chance of being recognizable. You'd also want to point out in your marketing materials that, unlike with conventional landline service, your offering includes voice mail at no extra charge as well as other convenient features such as push-to-dial call logs and directories.

Another idea would be to replicate some landline service features that regular wireless service often doesn't include, such as a white-pages directory listing (if the user wants one) or the ability to make international calls.

If you receive a lot of consumer mail-order catalogs as I do, you've probably noticed a new item: an interior design-friendly recharging station, sometimes offered in a choice of wood finishes, that plugs into an electrical outlet and provides two or three outlets for connecting cell phones. The idea is to keep hand-held devices from cluttering up desks and countertops, but in addition, these stations could provide a central place to leave a phone plugged in and within easy reach while you're at home. I'm picturing one of these as part of the landline replacement offering — port your home phone number and get this $50 value free, or something along those lines.

Of course, one of the reasons wireless operators haven't marketed their services so blatantly as landline replacements is that many of them have landline businesses and are reluctant to deliberately cannibalize that base. But before long, they may take the attitude that landline displacement is happening anyway — let's at least make sure customers stay within our corporate fold.

In the meantime, perhaps there is a play for a company such as Sprint or T-Mobile that doesn't have a huge landline business. Sprint recently disrupted the industry, although not in the way it intended, when it launched an unlimited plan. When competitors countered with similar plans of their own, everyone's stock value suffered. But by launching a landline replacement service, a Sprint or a T-Mobile could shake things up with less risk that competitors would make the same move.