Channel Tech Center

Lately it seems the net is ablaze about Verizon Wireless’ inclusion of a $15 dollar fee for Exchange access. This type of “nickel and diming” may be upsetting to a consumer but it seems to me on the B2B front its business as usual.

Almost every major wireless provider (except Sprint) has a different plan for personal and a business use. I’d assume there is a reason for this like maybe milking the business user with specific surcharges like that of the exchange surcharge. Let’s do a quick comparison of the 4 leading wireless carriers, where we will use their personal plan as a baseline to get overall fees on business plans.

Comparison of prices between major carriers., where cheapest Business and Personal plans were selected

Gmail, Yahoo, and other public facing email services assumed they serve primarily the consumer. This is reinforced by the fact that each service usually has an entirely different entry point for business accounts. Case in point, Google has “Gmail for Business”, which has different tiered plans with features that the consumer versions don’t have (like shared contacts).

For the business, the exchange surcharge, even if it adds up to “thousands” at the end of the year, is a cost of doing business. It will be absorbed and passed to the customer’s cost just like it has always been.

The only people who are haggard about these “new and improved” exchange fees are consumers who will need to pay the ability to connect their personal phones to the corporate email servers. They use their phones because most likely then not they either don’t qualify for a company phone or don’t like the one they already have.

In general upgrade your sales team to the newest phones if they add to the efficiency of your team and worry not about the fees involved. Instead just add the difference to your overhead and price accordingly and if you’re a consumer – save your receipts for your tax person in April.