IVR Deconstructed

Are you an AT&T or T-Mobile subscriber? On March 20, 2011, AT&T announced it was purchasing T-Mobile for $39 billion.  The deal would come with 33.7 T-Mobile subscribers, making AT&T the largest mobile provider in the U.S. with 43% of the market, significantly larger than any other phone company.

As it stands, there are four major mobile providers operating in the U.S.: AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon.  According to Reuters, these four companies control 90 percent of the market.  Just today, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they were filing a suit to block the merger, stating that the union would: “substantially lessen competition for mobile wireless telecommunications services across the United States, resulting in higher prices, poorer quality services, fewer choices and fewer innovative products.”

Today, the DOJ announced that they were filing a suit in federal court to block the takeover because of antitrust concerns.  Antitrust or competition law was drafted to both promote and preserve market competition, preventing the monopolization or cannibalization of an industry by any one company.  Antitrust law regulates anti-competitive business conduct. Both the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission can bring civil suits to federal court to ensure that these laws are maintained and enforced.

Federal antitrust law ensures consumer protection by encouraging healthy and robust business development that provides customers a choice.  When companies monopolize the market, competition is jeopardized, affecting the quality and pricing of the products that are available to the end user.

When a huge company like AT&T merges with another huge company like T-Mobile to operate under the same business umbrella, it limits buyer choice and can severely hinder the quality of products being marketed and produced.  It is with this point in mind that the DOJ filed suit to block the merger.

A majority of Americans communicate exclusively via mobile or wireless communications.  There are myriad types of phone including feature and smart phones, tablets and data cards but only four large providers of cell phone service.  As it stands, there is already limited competition.  Narrowing the field by one and combining two of the four companies would only serve to further exacerbate this situation, extremely limiting the choices customers will have.

Mobile phones are virtually at the forefront of the tech revolution, with developers and tech companies like T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon constantly trying to promote their product.  Interactive voice response systems, in large part, rely on the use of technology, especially the mobile phone.

Mobile phones offer the ease of mobility and the convenience of accessibility and are purchased in large quantities by people from all demographics.  If a merger like this occurs and a critical number of subscribers find themselves with bad service or service they can’t afford, it will effect numerous other industries as well, including IVR.  I guess we should all thank the DOJ for taking a stand against this.  After all, AT&T is dropping enough calls already, we don’t need them dropping anymore.

The Northeast gets a lot of ice and snow storms that bring trees down on telephone lines and damage electrical equipment, causing blackouts. The area has also seen its fair share of hurricanes and tropical storms like Irene.

But while most people from the Northeast—New Englanders in particular—are a tough breed because of the winters, I’m not sure anyone is ever really prepared for this.

By some estimates, up to 7 million people are without power and 38 are dead from South Carolina to Maine after Irene. High winds pulled down power lines and trees that damaged power equipment. On the coast, floodwaters washed over electrical stations and threatened underground power lines.

It’s so bad that some of the major power companies on the East Coast have set up pages on their websites where people can report power outages. (More on that later.)

Transportation in the Northeast has ground to a halt—thousands of flights were cancelled and the trains and buses stopped running—although it’s now starting to come back.

According to CNN, the storm destroyed over 200 roads and bridges in Vermont alone. (Many of those bridges were quaint covered bridges that had been around forever.)

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I sent a mass text message to friends in New England this morning. I assumed they were fine because the experts had downgraded the storm, but you never know. All I said was: ‘Everyone safe and sound?’

I still haven’t heard back from all of them, but from what I’ve gathered, the areas where they live were some of the luckier ones—mostly just high winds and rain and no major flooding.

I can easily picture what some of the rivers I know look like in southern Maine right now, although I really don’t want to picture what they look like in New York and Vermont.

(Of course, some of the people I’ve sent texts to aren’t usually on the ball with the ‘texting’ anyway—you know the types…‘Oh, I didn’t have my cell phone turned on.’ Then why do you have one? But that’s another post.)

I’m just glad I don’t have to wait for whatever phone lines that have inevitably gone down to come back up. It often takes days for the power and phones to come back when the lines get hit.

Everyone I know has a mobile phone, so I can reach them. And mobile phones are really the only viable form of communication during disasters.

Jumping back to the power company websites, mobile phones are pretty much the only way someone without power can report it. Even if your computer has battery power, your modem and router still need direct power for you to get online.

(With that in mind, the State of South Carolina actually signed a contract with Plum right before Irene hit so it could provide information to the public via an IVR system.)

Anyway, I’m starting to feel an inkling of what the Japanese felt during the tsunami earlier this year—trying to reach friends and family on mobile phones. Only an inkling, though. I don’t pretend to know how they truly felt.

I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but last night while I was watching TV an ad popped up (literally, a pop-up) during a commercial.

The bottom of the page filled with a pop-up just like you’d see on your computer. It said something like—

To get a free sample of Annoying Sauce, press ‘OK.’

—or whatever. (Obviously, I made up the Annoying Sauce.)

When it came on the screen I had the exact same reaction I have to pop-ups on the computer. I think my index finger actually did a little involuntary click on a phantom mouse button.

I looked at my remote control to find a way to get rid of the ad and saw the ‘exit’ button and was about to push it when I stopped.

My first thought was: What happens if I press ‘OK?’ I wasn’t sure if it would do anything—I have a digital cable box with DVR, but I don’t have my TV hooked up to the Internet (yet). I debated pressing ‘OK’ anyway, but then my second thought occurred to me.

My second thought: Oh, no, is this the future of advertising on TV? Please no. If we have to deal with a bunch of pop-ups during shows I’m gonna lose it. (Not really. I don’t get that mad about things. But I will sigh audibly from time to time.)

The ad-within-the-ad last night was relatively harmless—if you see a cool product, you might actually want to pause your show for a few minutes to see the web page (assuming your TV is web-enabled, which they all will be eventually).

So that’s not so bad. But, seriously, can you imagine pop-ups during shows? Like, in the middle of a poignant moment in your favorite drama and a pop-up for some auto dealer or whatever flashes across the screen, one of those inflatable green guys waving his arms all over the place?

No thanks. I reeeeeeeally hope that’s not where we’re headed. Although Sweet Dee from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia probably wouldn’t mind—those guys have “amazing moves.”

So Moody’s has downgraded Japan’s credit rating one notch to Aa3 (the fourth-highest rating) because of high national debt and the inability of political leadership to enact effective debt-resolution measures.

Sound familiar? Earlier this month, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA-plus (the first U.S. downgrade ever), citing…you guessed it…high national debt and the inability of political leadership to enact effective debt-resolution measures.

There are some differences, obviously…

Today, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan resigned as promised after plummeting public approval and criticism of how he handled the tsunami and nuclear disaster in March.

It wasn’t at all surprising that Kan resigned—he survived a June 2 no-confidence vote in the Japanese parliament only by promising he’d resign after passing legislation to address reconstruction and boost renewable energy efforts (he wanted to eliminate nuclear energy), according to the Guardian.

The U.S.’s credit rating was and still is higher than Japan’s. The Japanese have debt that’s over 200% of its economic output, the highest debt-to-GDP ratio of any nation. The U.S.’s debt is (only?) 100% of its GDP.

The tsunami and nuclear disaster sent Japan spiraling into recession while the U.S. has (so far) held off a double-dip recession. There’s no way a tiny island nation can avoid recession after a natural disaster cripples its economy and production.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two downgrades, though, is how the markets reacted. After the U.S. downgrade, global markets dropped significantly for fear of another global recession. After the Japan downgrade…nothing. Barely a whisper, in fact.

Kan’s resignation and Moody’s downgrade have barely made a ripple in the news. Investors on the Nikkei pretty much ignored the downgrade, confident in Japan’s economic rebound. About the only effect people are talking about is U.S. markets dipping (even further) because of it. Interesting.

Next: Why the different market reactions?

One of my problems with Wall Street is that it’s so self-serving—investors are interested in making money and nothing else. Normally that’s just an idle thought or the butt of a wisecrack at a party, but not today.

Steve Jobs announced that he’s stepping down from his post as chairman of Apple. It’s no surprise—the guy has been fighting pancreatic cancer, on medical leave since January 17.

According to the BBC, Jobs has battled cancer twice in the last seven years—once in 2004 and again in 2009 when he received a liver transplant.

He’s not leaving Apple because he doesn’t believe in it or like the direction it’s taking or anything like that. He’s had health issues, and no one questions his decision to step down. And he’s not going anywhere, really—he’ll still be chairman of the board of directors, according to CNN.

Also, it’s not like he’s leaving Apple in shambles, either. Quite the contrary. The BBC reported that Apple was the world’s most valuable capitalization earlier this month, ahead of Exxon Mobil for a time.

The iPhone is a monster. The iPad and MacBooks both kill it. And Apple’s into all kinds of other things.

Will Apple be the same innovator it was with Jobs? Who knows. But the company is loaded with some of the most talented, innovative people available, so it easily could be.

So everything looks good for Apple, right? You bet. (The iPhone 5 is due out in September, for one, so that’ll be an immediate short-term boost.)

But, naturally, Wall Street is doing its usual thing. On the news that Jobs resigned, the company’s stock dropped ten points. It’s slowly creeping back up as the day goes on, but still.

Apple trades at over $370 a share. Of the companies in its sphere, only Google trades higher at about $520. The next closest is IBM at about $165.

Here’s my point…

When you’re building something, you leave your money in even in the hard times. Investors rarely build anything, which is why they’re running scared at the moment with the volatile world markets and country economies.

What the markets need right now is money going in, not going out. If Wall Street looked at the stock exchange as its own house, it would keep its money in. But of course it doesn’t. It looks at it as a means to make more money. So it lets its house fall.