Popular With Service Firms : Cellular Phones Make Fast Gains in County

Call it a sign of the times: Radio talk-show hosts have started receiving calls from motorists calling on mobile telephones.

The callers, who phone from such places as “northbound on I-5, somewhere near Oceanside . . . happen maybe once a month,” according to Steve Cosio, a producer with KSDO-AM in North Park.

The station’s “most interesting call . . . was from a listener who was working on the (U.S. Naval Radio Station) towers in College Grove. He called from the top of the tower and the reception was great.”

From all over the county, cellular phones seem to be catching on.

PacTel Mobile Access has attracted 3,000 customers since it began operating in San Diego last August, according to Scott Hoganson, a vice president with Pacific Telesis subsidiary. The firm operates one of San Diego County’s two cellular systems.

Hoganson said PacTel’s customer base is “higher than we anticipated at this point in time.”

Officials for NewVector Communications, the U.S. West subsidiary that operates the second cellular system in San Diego, declined to state how many customers the system has attracted. However, officials of Gencell, which operated the cellular system until NewVector purchased it last month, said the system had attracted 1,200 customers. Gencell had been reselling service on PacTel’s system before completing its own cellular system in April.

“We’re doing 25% better than we anticipated,” said John DeFeo, president of Bellevue, Wash.-based NewVector Communications, which also operates systems in eight other U.S. cities. DeFeo described NewVector’s growth plan as “aggressive.”

Hoganson estimated that PacTel will attract 20,000 San Diego County customers within the next five years.

That healthy outlook might in part be due to San Diego’s location in the shadow of Los Angeles,where the PacTel-operated system--the nation’s largest and fastest-growing--has attracted more than 55,000 subscribers since the first call was placed in June, 1984.

“The (Los Angeles) market has exploded and San Diego can benefit from that because Southern California is the largest cellular area in country right now,” said Hoganson. “Southern California is fulfilling its role as the true commuter capital of the world.”

Cellular telephones, which use radio relay stations to link mobile telephones to the existing telephone system, need not be used solely in automobiles. But, Hoganson said that heavy automobile use does “create the synergies,” which prompt customers to buy cellular phones.

“Cellular appeals to people who need to be in touch with clients, vendors, the office, but who often find themselves away from a convenient telephone,” said DeFeo, who emphasized that his company sells “mobile” telephones that can be used either in a car or anywhere that a “highly mobile person needs to be.”

Interestingly, cellular’s growth has been fueled not by the higher-income professionals--including doctors, lawyers and businessmen who would rather not go anywhere without a telephone--but by owners and employees of the myriad service businesses that require heavy amounts of time to be spent in the field, according to Hoganson.

Cellular telephones seem to be most popular among the construction and contracting industries, the real estate and finance businesses, entrepreneurs who travel frequently between various properties, and a wide variety of home and office service companies such as pool and lawn maintenance firms, according to DeFeo and Hoganson.

“People are realizing the productivity side benefits of cellular, that it’s not the luxury toy or something that’s there for fun,” Hoganson said.

To that end, NewVector has geared its sales and marketing pitch toward business people who “need another business tool . . . just like they’d need another photo copier or a word processor.”

PacTel has created a “cost justification scenario we walk customers through,” Hoganson said. “We find out how much time is spent in the car, how often he’s responding to a page, and how many times he has to get off the road and find phone that works.

As cellular telephones gain market acceptance, the county’s two cellular companies plan to build pricing packages that will attract occasional as well as heavy users.

PacTel soon will ask the state Public Utilities Commission to approve “corporate plans” tailored for companies with fleets of cars. Both NewVector and PacTel hope to gain approval for packages that guarantee a set number of calls for a fixed charge.

“As the two carriers begin to penetrate the market, (they increasingly will market to) consumers with specialized needs,” said DeFeo, who added that NewVector has tailored as many as 70 special rate packages in its other, more established markets.

As is the case with many emerging technologies, cellular advertising often has focused on educating consumers about why they need a cellular telephone--and why one system is more attractive than the other.

To that end, Gencell circulated results of a “research study” that indicated that its new system produced better service--clearer sounds and fewer disconnects--than the PacTel system.

PacTel’s Hoganson dismissed the study as “more of a marketing effort than something that has validity” and explained that PacTel has since added more radio relay stations, which boost the quality of its cellular system.

“Very soon, coverage won’t even be talked about in advertising,” said Hoganson. “We could go out and find our own professor to do a study, but it’s really best left up to the consumers to decide.”