The richest man starts with a blind box

Chapter 680 The contract machine of the year
Back then, on the communication network, there was always a saying that South YD North LT, which means that although these two companies are national communication companies, their main focus is on the north and the south, so you have to use LT when you go to the north, and you have to use LT when you go to the south. Have to use YD, otherwise, have to hold the phone above the head to talk.

But the problem is that there is a huge economic difference between the south and the north, and there is also a huge gap in the number of mobile phone users. The total number of users of YD is more than three times that of LT, which makes YD's income more than three times that of LT.

As a result, YD began to invest more funds in the construction of base stations in the south, and could even slowly expand to the north, constantly eroding LT's territory.

But on the contrary, LT was short of funds due to insufficient user base, not to mention expanding to the south, and even continued to maintain the quality of its communication in the north.

Therefore, LT was in decline and was heavily in debt. Even at that time, YD reported that YD was going to annex LT, and then form a giant communication company that dominated the country.

It is said that at that time, YD had already begun to prepare a comprehensive acquisition and acceptance plan. After the acquisition of LT, it began to prepare how to acquire LT's employees and base stations, and adjusted its own business strategy, such as how to moderately increase phone charges.

It can be seen that LT at that time was indeed not far from death, but the problem was that LT was not reconciled. It happened that the spring breeze of 3G network was blowing at that time, so LT made a decision that was shocking at the time.

That is the decision to completely abandon the base station expansion of the 2G network, and then try to borrow hundreds of billions of yuan in funds, and then build a 3G network in various provinces and cities across the country.

This can be said to be a decision that shocked everyone at the time, and at the same time shouted that LT was looking for a dead end. After all, 3G base stations are expensive, and the user's usage costs will definitely rise. China's economic situation at that time, how many people could there be in the country? Able to afford the communication needs of 3G base stations.

More industry experts and scholars have vowed to speak out on various channels, saying that the 2G base station network is very mature, and it is enough for ordinary people to use it for 30 years, and 30 years later will be the era of 3G network.

Don’t laugh when you see this, people at that time thought so, for example, the guy who ate a bite of pudding, he was going to change his LT card to a YD card when he saw the news, thinking that he was afraid that LT would go bankrupt, and he The phone number of is no longer available.

But after thinking about it, if LT goes bankrupt, no one will continue to pay for his mobile phone bills, so he is more happy to start using LT's mobile phone card, and then looks forward to LT's bankruptcy and no longer cares about his own phone bills. A bright future of debt.

No one thought that this decision of LT not only saved himself, but also became the favorable location for the promotion of iPhone 4 in China. After all, if there is no 3G network, the experience of using iPhone 4 is really not as comfortable as that of Nokia. An app that stops spinning but still fails to display information will make you want to smash your phone.

The last Renhe was Tengda launched a mobile app in 2011 called WeChat.

No one can imagine, when these three are combined, what kind of enormous power will erupt.

In 2010, Apple released the iPhone 4.

At the end of 2010, Apple announced that it had reached a strategic cooperation with LT. Its iPhone4 mobile phone will be completely bound with LT and become a contract phone of LT. Apart from parallel imports, the only way is to buy LT's genuine contract machine.

And because the parallel import industry had not yet developed at that time, except for Huaqiangbei, other provinces and cities in China basically had no channels to buy such parallel import iPhone4, so the only opportunity to buy genuine iPhone4 at that time was the contract with LT. machine.

Finally, on January 2011, 1, Tengda announced the launch of WeChat. There is also a story that is said to be true, that is, someone Lei launched the Michat APP in December 21, and then enthusiastically posted a circle of friends. , invite everyone in the circle of friends to experience their own Michat APP.

So 41 days later, WeChat was born.

Although this so-called true story is full of slots that I don’t know how to complain about, it is undeniable that WeChat was born on this day, and also in January, LT’s iPhone1 contract phone began to be sold in LT outlets across the country .

Nowadays, many young people may not know what a contract machine is and how it works.

To put it simply, when the iPhone 4 was launched in China, there were actually official and genuine sales channels, that is, it was purchased in the only three Apple stores in the country, and the price of a bare phone was 4999 yuan.

Of course, it is very difficult to buy, unless you are willing to go to the three only Apple stores to buy by train or plane, and the stock in the store is also limited, so you can’t buy it when you go, you have to make an appointment for one or two It takes a month.

If you don't want to run around the country like this, there is a very convenient way, that is, go directly to the largest LT business outlet in the local area to apply for a contract phone for iPhone4, and you can directly get a brand new one in the business outlet iPhone4.

At that time, the contract plan was divided into two types, one was 4999 yuan, and the other was 5880 yuan.

And according to LT's promotional caliber, the iPhone 4 itself is free and is given to you by LT. As for the 4999 yuan you pay, it is the phone fee.

You only need to pay 4999 yuan for the phone bill at one time, and then apply for a brand new LT phone card, and LT will send you an iPhone4 mobile phone.

This sounds very good. Although you still have to pay 4999 yuan, you can not only get a brand new iPhone4, but also get 4999 yuan in phone bills, which can last you at least five or six years. I didn't have to pay phone bills in [-], what a joy!

But the question is, would LT do such a stupid thing?
Of course it's impossible, the 4999 yuan call fee is subject to a consumption contract.

First of all, you spend 4999 yuan to purchase the phone bill, which is not paid to your account at one time, but divided into two years, and 208 yuan is sent to your mobile phone account every month for 24 consecutive months. It is exactly 4999 yuan.

This sounds good, anyway, it is impossible to use up 208 calls in a month, and calls can be accumulated, it is the same.

But the iPhone4 contract phone you buy must be used with an LT mobile phone card that you get on the spot, and this mobile phone card is inherently bound to a contract package with a monthly consumption of 298 yuan.

This package includes 480 minutes of talk time, 300 text messages, 100 multimedia messages, free call reminder service, free LT multimedia message service, free ring tone service, and most importantly, free 2 G of 3G traffic.

Everyone here may want to hit someone when they hear this package. I spend 298 yuan a month to get such a thing?With only 2G of traffic, how can this world be exploited to such an extent?

Don’t scold, anyone who has experienced the 2G era and the 3G era knows that the traffic at that time was expensive, especially in the 2G era, 1MB of traffic is 3 cents, and there is no package, so you have to pay as much as you spend. Money, 100 RMB can only buy 300MB of traffic, refuse to bargain.

But it’s not because the operators are too dark, but because the cost of base station laying is too high. If they don’t charge this way, they will never want to recover the cost for a lifetime.

In fact, when mobile phones first appeared in China, the phone bills were even more outrageous. It cost three yuan to make a call with a mobile phone. Some bosses’ monthly phone bills were as high as tens of thousands of yuan. This was purely for phone calls. Fees, these are to pay for the cost of laying base stations.

So when LT launched such a 298 package, in fact, in terms of the traffic price at that time, this 298 package was absolutely cost-effective.

But in this way, the 208 yuan phone bill refunded every month will be directly consumed in that month, and the user must pay at least 91 yuan for the phone call fee every month, otherwise the phone will stop directly, and the iPhone 4 will become a board. Bricked.

In this way, within two years, you must also pay at least 2184 yuan for LT calls.

In fact, this is equivalent to buying an iPhone 4999 mobile phone for 4 yuan in LT, and then spending 91 yuan a month to buy a two-year call plan called 298 yuan.

As soon as this contract was launched, many people scolded the contract for being too dark and idiots would be fooled. However, many of the first batch of contract machines were sold out. Often, the quota for a week was given to the contract in one morning. sold out.

On the one hand, it was because the popularity of iphone4 was hyped up at that time; on the other hand, it was because after experiencing the 2G network, more and more users found that they could not do without the mobile phone network at all, and needed a faster and more convenient network Serve!

In the end, many people find that people around them are using WeChat, talking and sending messages to their mobile phones non-stop, which is not too cool.

Anyone who does not have WeChat will be completely out of date, and many even buy an iPhone 4 just to use WeChat.

This is the role of the right time, place and people.

In fact, in the era of iphone4, this was just fermentation. The era of iphone4S really reached its peak. The consumer's pursuit of iphone mobile phones exploded completely. In addition, Jobs died after releasing the iphone4s, so in iphone4S began to pass the LT contract machine After the sale, within half a year, in place LT added more than 800 million new users.

Moreover, these users are all 3G users, the kind that cost hundreds of yuan a month, so LT's stock price began to soar, various financing continued, and it completely walked out of the shadow of bankruptcy. the throne of one.

So later YD and DX could only deploy 3G, but they still couldn't surpass LT's 3G signal. It was not until they started to deploy 4G in advance that they pulled back their own market.

With one paper contract, LT and Apple achieved a win-win situation. At the same time, Huaxia also realized the importance of the YD communication era, and began to frantically deploy the next 4G and 5G, so Huaxia will have the world's No. [-] YD communication network in the future, and at the same time Relying on such a well-developed network can further improve the society's creativity and development capabilities, as well as its operation and governance capabilities.

That's why today we use this QR code to laugh at Americans who can't even copy the homework of using QR codes to control YQ.

Come on, do you think Americans don't want to copy their homework?
It's really impossible to copy, because except for the cities in the United States, there is no YD communication network in the rest of the country, your QR code is useless at all, and it is a woolen yarn.

All in all, these are all linked together. If one link is missing, it is impossible for Huaxia to develop to where it is today.

Here comes the question, who invented the magical operation of the contract machine?Is it LT?
Of course not, this was invented by the Americans themselves, but it was invented in the 90s. For example, in 2004, 90% of the mobile phones in the United States were contracted by various operators.

(End of this chapter)