Dobson Cellular launches Breeze

Last week, Dobson Cellular (www.Dobson.net) launched Breeze, an unlimited local calling brand targeted to students, local businesses, soccer moms, those who want to ditch landline service and the credit-challenged.

When it comes to payment models, Breeze is a switch-hitter. The traditional package is postpaid and offers roaming. The other option, dubbed Advanced Pay, lets customers prepay a $39.99 monthly fee, with roaming and long distance as extra costs.

With either option, Breeze customers get unlimited incoming and outgoing calls in their local area.

Breeze launched in 41 cities, with more to come by the end of August, according to a Dobson spokesperson. Breeze launched in 13 states, including Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Tennessee and Texas. Breeze has been under development since October 2000, when the brand was launched in its test market in Western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle, according to Andy Hoehner, Dobson wireless product manager.

To promote the launch, the carrier will hold a nationwide balloon launch from retail stores in the 41 Breeze markets. Residents of those cities will be invited to release balloons on August 16 at 5 p.m. CST. A 3-night vacation goes to the person whose balloon travels the farthest – whoever retrieves that balloon will win $500.

Breeze is another brand akin to Leap Wireless’ (www.leapwireless.com) successful Cricket (www.cricketcommunications.com) service, which offers unlimited local calling in more than 20 markets with more than 472,000 subscribers. U.S. Cellular (www.uscellular.com) offers unlimited local calling in Knoxville, TN for $35 a month through its MetroZone brand. Alltel (www.alltel.com) offers a similar service, branded as Boomerang (www.boomerangwireless.com), in 11 markets primarily in the southeastern and southwestern U.S. Boomerang costs $29.95 a month.

Traditional regional carriers that launch unlimited local calling brands are reactions to encroachment from Cricket, according to Yankee Group (www.yankeegroup.com) analyst Knox Bricken.

“They tend to only launch them in cities where they compete head-on with Leap, and they’ve kind of offered them later at a loss, just to keep customers,” she said.

Dobson’s strategy, though, by launching simultaneously in 41 markets, appears to be proactive with profitable intentions, Bricken added. Competition from national carriers and localized brands has put regional carriers between a rock and a hard spot.

“As Leap comes in and offers a more local feel and more localized service, they are being squeezed from both ends, with the national operators offering the national feel and Leap offering the very local feel,” Bricken said.

Leap’s advantage is that its CDMA network is specifically built for its business model, whereas other carriers have widespread buildout outside their core areas. Dobson, with service in nearly every state and half its network using TDMA, may have a harder time managing the extra traffic on their network, Bricken said.

“Leap’s customers average about 1,100 minutes of use a month, compared to an average Dobson subscriber who averages in the 190 range,” she said. “That’s a lot more traffic on that network, I’m not sure their networks are optimized for it.”