For the longest time, the biggest thing going for T-Mobile as a wireless carrier was a mix of the best customer service in the country along with low service plan prices. Now T-Mobile is, for the second year in a row, ranked behind competing carriers, and what were once appealing pricing plans are no longer that impressive, as T-Mobile’s data network and service quality justify the low price tags; luckily, there is a savior on the horizon.

J.D. Power & Associates has for some time had the very powerful ability to deem which mobile carriers provide the best customer support through customer care surveys. For that reason, T-Mobile has through most of its existence been known as the carrier with the best customer service. For better or worse though, last year T-Mobile was surpassed in customer care quality by Verizon, the leading national CDMA provider.

And this year again Verizon maintained the top seat in customer care, according to Engadget Mobile. What’s worse for T-Mobile is that Verizon’s recent acquisition Alltel also beat out T-Mobile to rest comfortably between Verizon and T-Mobile in the number two position.

It isn’t like T-Mobile completely bombed its customer care survey; far from it, T-Mobile only scored 3 points less than Verizon and 2 behind Alltel at a respectable 100, in contrast to seriously lacking companies like Sprint, which scored 79. The problem is that the company either needs to bump up its customer support to steal the number one spot back or start focusing on a new attack angle in the wireless market. That new attack is right around the corner.

For those of you who haven’t really been following the developments on Google’s revolutionary new mobile operating system Android, all signs are showing that T-Mobile will be inaugural carrier to tout the operating system, and it will do so on an impressive handset to boot. Many believe the HTC Dream, a touchscreen handset to rival the iPhone with a slide-out qwerty keyboard, will be available for pre-order after much anticipation sometime in September.

Customers who have stuck with the company for a while will (according to rumor) be given a special deal in which they may purchase the handset during the pre-order week for somewhere between $99 and $150, whereas all other interested customers will have to front $399 for the handset. If you’re wondering whether that price tag is worth it in comparison to Apple’s iPhone, I will be writing a piece later that details exactly how the Android phone (HTC Dream) will be able to steal many customers away from AT&T and the iPhone.

The release of the HTC Dream with Android will directly coincide with the large-scale rollout of T-Mobile’s new 3G network. Where the carrier was once accused of being behind the times on technology, it will now have an equal data network to compete with the likes of other U.S. carriers, and a flagship handset that will appeal to every type of user.

So T-Mobile isn’t number one in customer support anymore. Big whoop. It is preparing to have a phone that will be the iPhone’s best competitor, a high-speed 3G network, and low prices to beat out those of other carriers. If you ask me, I’ll take the HTC Dream with Android and 3G along with the customer service I’ve come to love, hand over the 3-point deficit between T-Mobile and Verizon, and go happily on my way.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 8:04 pm under Uncategorized.

Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.
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