PRODUCT ASSESSMENT Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

PRODUCT ASSESSMENT - Term Paper Example Why, though, is dial-up Internet service in the decline stage along the product life cycle? According to the U.S. Census conducted in 2010, metropolitan areas experienced much faster growth than rural regions, by a rate of 4.9 percent (census.gov, 2011). This means that consumers are seeking opportunities to migrate to metropolitan or suburban areas at a much faster pace than those looking for rural living opportunities. It is in the urban regions of the United States where major, contemporary Internet providers have developed the appropriate technologies and support tools to sustain broadband Internet access as well as service providers along service networks that provide multitudes of options, today, for abandoning dial-up services. In essence, these migrating shifts away from rural locations gave consumers much more opportunities to explore faster and more efficient non-dial-up Internet service providers. Rationale for Explaining Dial-Up Decline According to Michael Porter (2011), a respected business theorist, threats to sustaining a product and ensuring longevity, thus avoiding decline, include threats of substitutes on the market. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was commonplace while Internet services were in the introductory and growth stages to maintain dial-up services due to limited providers and appropriate network developments across the country designed to support faster Internet services. Political de-regulation of Internet services, along with both private and public corporation investment into developing new Internet technologies, provided a foundation for the emergence of many service providers (such as Verizon and Comcast) to put substitutes into the market. With growth in competition, the economic-related benefits to consumers requiring Internet services began to witness various price competitions occurring, thereby providing more value to consumers to abandon dial-up Internet service providers. Up until just the last five years, it was common for dial-up Internet to range between $15 and $25 monthly. It was only upon development of appropriate Internet networks and mobile Internet technologies that dial-up service providers were forced to dramatically lower dial-up services in order to maintain competitiveness against major Internet providers now emerging all across the country. Shifts in social lifestyle also changed the dynamics that no longer made dial-up services viable to sustain busy lifestyle and professionalism. With the ability to now access the Internet using mobile devices (i.e. smartphones), consumers could access the Internet out of their bricks-and-mortar businesses and homes, making dial-up service both impractical and not nearly as reliable. Buyers, due to concentrated and saturated competitive markets, now maintained considerable buying power as switching costs from moving from one provider to another competitor were no longer high as they were in the day of growth of dial-up services. Change s in social lifestyle, as aforementioned, added a new type of pricing transparency for the many broadband and mobile Internet providers now on the market, giving consumers an advantage in choice and purchase selection opportunities. Recommendations for Potential Action The first recommendation would be for dial-up service providers to reposition dial-up services to maintain unique innovations not found with other broadband or mobile providers currently offering