Why Carriers Love the Blackberry. Why Alec Saunders is Crying

As the Blackberry teeters on the verge of extinction in the U.S. after yet another legal loss, Alec Saunders has revealed a dirty, little secret about why ARPU-crazed wireless carriers love the Blackberry so they that they're willing to give it away. Saunders just received his monthly bill with a overage charge of $72. Puzzled, he discovered the “unlimited” plan offered to him by Rogers meant unlimited speed, not unlimited data. Sure he should have read the fine print but his experience illustrates a key reason why the love affair between the Blackberry and wireless carriers is so hot and heavy. First, the Blackberry is a cash-cow, and it will become even more lucrative with the launch of new high-speed networks and new Blackberries that finally have a half-decent Web browser. Combining bigger pipes and a better browser gets you more data usage. Now, here's the best part: most Blackberry users – unlike Poor Alec – don't care about much they pay for the service because they their companies pay their wireless bills because it's a business “tool”. If the Blackberry bill is $100 or $150 or $200 a month, so be it because it's not coming out of the user's pocket. But if you're a carrier, the Blackberry is the killer tool to jump-start data usage and ARPU because the Blackberry has become such a must-have corporate tool, everyone seems to have stopped looking at their bills. Maybe corporate bean-counters will start seeking cheaper alternatives (Good, Visto?) when the economy slows down and cost-cutting becomes a strategic necessity. Maybe then, they will realize how expensive using a Blackberry can be. While Alec may get little sympathy from Rogers, he make get some measure of satisfaction by signing an online petition against the company and its sneaky 25MB per month data plan.