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Home Area

Submitted by: fensbomb
Created: Jun 30, 2007, 8:45 pm

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The Elevator Pitch

For the consumer looking for the best cell service who has no idea which provider works best the Home Area Website is a website that helps consumers determine which cell phone service works best. Unlike Phonescoop our product focuses on cell reception and retail store service in their area.

The Idea

The idea is very simple. A website which provides information for cell phone users which allows them to make the right choice for a provider. The website will allow users to comment on how their cell phone service works where they live (good information for spotty service). It could be broken down by town and even into certain parts of town.
Another thing users could comment and rate besides the reception is the phone they have and the service at the local retail stores. A user would sign up and indicate which service provider and cell phone they have as well as which store they usually go to for service. This would allow someone shopping for a cell phone to see how the service is in their area. I could even see this working with Google Maps to give an users an idea of cell service on certain streets (sort of like T-mobiles website).
Revenue could obviously come from advertisements and could even be worked into some kind of affiliate with the cell providers.

The Logo

I thought of this idea when I was...

I work at a cell phone provider and get many questions along the lines of, "Will this particular phone work in this part of town and how well?" It is very hard to know this kind of information.

Comments Posted

vanhees Posted: June 30, 2007, 11:04 pm

Well I always ask people around me what they use and what their experiences are. That works fine for me.
The question is: how do you get people to put this information online? Ones you have that solved, this site could be very usefull. The add part could be difficult since the same compagnies are being judged on your site.
Tommy

fensbomb Posted: July 1, 2007, 11:48 am

Here is a website which has a similar idea:

http://www.cellreception.com

I would want to take it one step further and combine it with phone reviews such as:

http://www.phonescoop.com

Both of these sites have advertisements from different providers. It would be tough to have the reviews right away, but how did these other sites get them?

Alex_UK Posted: July 2, 2007, 6:08 am

People buy cells so they can talk on the move, the best reception a person can get at home is a land line

fensbomb Posted: July 2, 2007, 3:11 pm

I work at a cell provider and I would say at least half of the people don't have a landline....

Alex_UK Posted: July 3, 2007, 7:29 am

Rubbish

fensbomb Posted: July 3, 2007, 5:09 pm

what's rubbish? That half the people don't have a landline? I am sorry, but it isn't rubbish its very true. Many people in the US are giving up landlines. People say all the time their cell phone is their only phone.

fensbomb Posted: July 3, 2007, 5:13 pm

By the way, this idea isn't even about landlines. The idea is so people know which service works best overall in their town.

darlinglilred Posted: July 5, 2007, 11:48 am

Almost everyone I know doesn;t have landlines, only cell phones. Just throwing that out there.

saigon Posted: July 8, 2007, 11:30 am

Fensbomb: do you mean Network providers service or CEllphone model features?
A plan subscriber usually have access on their NSP website and they give info on their service areas... so i guess you just want all this NSP to have a certain common hub for comparison of their reach, availability and other service such as INtl roam, 3g areas, etc etc? Am i correct?

saigon Posted: July 8, 2007, 11:32 am

oops and directory of their serivce centers? Well any simpack indicates their address and branches aside for customer hotline... and am talking about my poor 3rd world country huh? Also, do your network provider doesnt advertise evenin Yellow pages?

fensbomb Posted: July 8, 2007, 4:45 pm

Saigon,

I am talking about the general reception area. I know service providers all have maps already, but the town I live in is suppose to have service from one of the major carriers and I know for a fact it doesn't work that well. It would target smaller cities where service is spotty. But adding the international roam and 3G areas would also work.

scrollinondubs Posted: July 8, 2007, 9:19 pm

so like an Epinions site only for cell service with a local component that allows people to get an idea of reception by carrier in certain areas? interesting. i can see that being valuable from a consumer perspective but I'm with vanhees that you'd have to figure out the right incentive that gets people to objectively report their own data.

ideally you bootstrap a review site off of user-reported info but then quickly go to the providers and negotiate deals to aggregate the dropped call data from their system and display it via the site. I have no idea if they'd ever agree to that but once you get a couple, the dominoes would fall and you'd have an extremely valuable hub of data. back in the day i handled the cars.com integration for azcentral.com and the car dealers held out at first but once a couple caved and were on the service, all the others had to open up their inventory systems because they were losing leads to the people that were on-board...

good idea
sean

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