Local citizens no longer "wired"

Author: Kelly Janis

This winter, Middlebury was infused with a burst of technological savvy when Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless set up shop alongside Unicel to vie for the town's wireless loyalties. This spurt of cell phone providers leaves Middlebury locals with a dizzying conundrum: which carrier to choose?
Middlebury's Verizon Wireless store performs a variety of functions. "We start new service. We upgrade current existing accounts. We sell accessories. Basically, we do everything a corporate center would do, except for repairs," said Rob Loyzelle, the sole sales associate at the franchise, which opened on Dec. 7, 2006. "It was independent market research that made us decide that this would be a prime area for a Verizon location."
Judy Brim and her husband Bill opened Middlebury's Sprint Nextel store on the Friday after Thanksgiving. "We have operated out of our home in New Haven for three and a half years, selling Nextel," Brim said. "Then, when the merger happened, we started taking on the Sprint side of things. Now, we're doing both."
Meanwhile, Terrapin Communications, a Unicel authorized agent, stands in the same Court Street location which it has occupied for the past three years. Terrapin president Christopher K. Thiesen is undaunted by the raising of the competitive stakes. "My customers have stayed with me," he said, adding that, since Verizon and Sprint Nextel moved in, he has, in fact, seen a 20 percent increase in the number of new customers porting in phone numbers originating from other carriers.
Loyzelle, Thiesen and Brim each offer compelling arguments for why their store trumps the alternatives.
"We're the largest cell phone company in America," Loyzelle said of Verizon. "We have nationwide coverage, whereas our other competitors don't. Our phones, generally speaking, work a lot better overall than our competitors' phones do. There are no hidden charges in any of our bills, whereas our competitors throw in tons of hidden charges. That's how I get customers from other companies. They'll come in and say, 'well, I got charged for this and this and this and they didn't explain to me why.'"
"Competition is good," Brim shrugged. "But we have different items and services." She emphasized Sprint Nextel's efforts to enhance its products by implementing built-in MP3 players, broadband internet connections and equipment such as Blackberries which incorporate a whirlwind of amenities in a single unit. "A lot more consumers want something like that in their hand, so they can have a fun little tool to play around with," Brim said.
Like Brim and Loyzelle, Thiesen emphasizes the distinctness of his business from the competition. "Unicel has a different mentality. We are not a nationwide network, so we think on a more local basis. We want to make sure our signal is present in all the little towns," he said. "We have the best signal strength, and we take care of our customers."
What do these customers have to say?
"Sprint has decent coverage in and around the heart of Middlebury, including most of campus," said a post on the "Cell Phone Coverage-Middlebury, VT" message board at www.cellreception.com.
Another poster countered this claim. "Seven Sprint company phones have gone dead for several days at a time from our home base in Middlebury, VT. Stuff happens, but what is disturbing is that the phones display several bars (a false indication of service)."
"No doubt Verizon has dominated the cell industry as far as Vermont goes," wrote another Middlebury resident. "I work at a motel in Middlebury and I hear from many travelers how their cell has unreliable service. Not one of them had Verizon. I have no idea if Verizon is as great in any other state, but here, no doubt!"
Disagreement ensued on the message board. "Verizon stinks out here. We just dropped our service."
The College takes a noncommittal stance on the merits of the opposing companies on the orientation website's "What To Bring" primer. "At present we find that Verizon Wireless and Unicel offer the best reception and service plans for the Middlebury area," it reads. Nonetheless, it continues, "Nextel and Sprint PCS also have reception in Middlebury."
Given the flurry of ambivalent reviews, all three carriers remain in the running as feasible recourses for wireless fanatics.
Brim admitted that she was originally "iffy" about Sprint Nextel's Merchant's Row location. The passage of time, however, has quelled her worries. "We have no complaints," she said. "The location is great."
Though Loyzelle was confident that his Court Street store front would attract customers with its prominent positioning, he too was concerned about making local residents aware of its presence. "I had pushed for some advertising, but my idea was shot down," he said, "We just came in and slapped the 'grand opening' signs on. We're in a prime location and have a great parking lot." As a result, Loyzelle said, "I would have liked to have seen some advertising done, but business has been phenomenal."
College students constitute an appreciable sliver of cell phone users. Andrew Matson '09 provided evidence for this fact at lunch time on Friday, when he was perched at Verizon's counter, learning strategies for transferring numbers from his now defunct phone into one he had just purchased.
"I needed a new phone, and I heard this place was in the area. It sounded convenient, so I came up here," Matson said.
Though he was pleased with his purchase, not everyone is as satisfied by the store's offerings.
"I wouldn't say I'm anti-Verizon, but I was slightly disappointed with their service," said Chalene Pek Yin Chi '10, after she was informed of the franchise's inability to perform repairs. "I had expected a Verizon store to have been able to help much more than just tell me to bring it to a technician in Burlington."
In spite of this, Matson was optimistic about the store's prospects for success. "I think they'll do well. The demand among college students is definitely high."
Up to this point, however, Loyzelle has not seen this demand reflected in the stream of customers trickling through his door. "Surprisingly, it's more working class people, more business professionals," he said. This fact stands in opposition to his prior expectations. "When I first came into the market, I thought it would be straight out college kids all the time, and surprisingly, college kids make up less than 25 percent of my current customer base. Hopefully, that will change."
Thiesen has witnessed a similar dynamic at Unicel. "I think the College does everything it can to keep kids on campus," he said, noting that while he boasts a number of faculty patrons, College students are conspicuously absent from his customer base. Thiesen is hard at work to rectify this. "I'm working to put together some sort of package, where you can show your Middlebury ID and get discounts," Thiesen said. He plans to present the plan to the College within the month.
Ultimately, the stores' presence in Middlebury saves residents the hassle of commuting elsewhere.
"If you want Verizon service and you don't choose Middlebury, it's either a drive to Burlington or a drive to Rutland. If you choose to do your business here, there's usually no waiting and I try as hard as I can to find the best phone for you," Loyzelle said. "I've done a lot of research in terms of which phones work better than others. So I think that when customers come in, they're getting the best product for them."
Brim, too, ensures that her customers walk away with the most suitable purchase, regardless of whether it comes from her store. "With all of us out here, we're just offering the best for the customer, giving them choices," she said. "Where one carrier might not have coverage, the other may. And if I know somebody from another area would be better off with Unicel, I'll send them to Unicel. I believe in not setting somebody up with something they can't use. I will not sell to people who 'kind of' have service, o
r may not have service at all." Consequently, the store offers a "demo program" in which customers may sample a phone of their choice for 24 to 48 hours in order to gauge whether it meets their needs.
"Some people want to sell you a phone and then wash their hands of it," Thiesen said. "If you have a problem, I'm not going to tell you to call a customer service representative. I'm going to take care of it."
As Thiesen strives to maintain his business traction, the newcomers on the wireless scene plot their advances.
Loyzelle has more than a few lofty ambitions where the future of his business is concerned. "I would like to make this the number one Verizon outlet in Vermont," he said. "I was the number one salesperson in the entire state of Vermont for January, and the way March has been going, I'll probably be number one for March, too."
Brim, on the other hand, is less fazed by matters of competition. Instead, she and her husband strive above all else to craft a warm, family-oriented atmosphere. "Bill and I treat it as if family were coming in to purchase phones," Brim said. "We like to stay as small as we can. We don't have people busting down the doors, but my client base is happy that we're here."
Such happiness is a sentiment which Brim expects will endure. "We are bound by our cell phones," she said. "We would be lost without them."