User Centered

...well, slightly more.

It appears someone has moved from “network centered” to “user centered” in the cell phone market.

You may have seen the clever commercial where alltel is taken to court by all the mascots from the major networks because it has a “circle of friends” program. It allows you to pick 10 numbers to call for free on any network. Great move for the consumer. It’s pretty expensive (cheapest plan I found was 60 dollars that included the MyCircle feature), and who knows what other “implementation” quirks there are, but at the very least, it is notable that a network is considering a “user centered” move like this.

All other networks allow you to call within their own network, presumably as incentive to get your friends and family to join as well.

I hope this catches on and prices become more competitive amongst networks. You can make my circle less than ten if you'd like, or take some of my existing "anytime" minutes. It's not like I have a lot of friends anyway.