SAN FRANCISCO — Having already equipped most adults and half of all teenagers with cell phones, the mobile phone industry is now turning its attention to the last untapped demographic — people over 65.
But its dreams of collecting monthly subscription fees from grandparents talking to their grandchildren, retirees calling friends from their recreational vehicles or checking in with their doctors may exact a hefty and unexpected price. The mobile phone industry has roused the interest of AARP, their powerful political lobby.
And AARP is not happy with what it has heard from its members: complaints about incomprehensible service contracts, confusing bills and dead zones that are not clearly marked on coverage maps.
We're hoping "to make the industry stand up and say, 'We've got to fix what's going on here,' " said Susan Weinstock, national coordinator, economic and utility issues, with AARP. "This is going to be consumer protection for everybody — not just seniors."
The effort, which has entailed lobbying Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and state legislatures, has caught the cell phone industry off guard. Consumer advocates say that AARP's aggressiveness also reflects its own internal dynamics and that the organization is focusing on such a populist issue to make amends with a membership angered and torn by the turmoil of last year's divisive Medicare fight.
The cell phone industry has argued that it has done a good job of serving the needs of older customers and that what is best for people on fixed incomes is an industry free from taxation and regulation and thus, theoretically, able to offer lower prices.
Late in September, the two groups met for the first time to discuss common ground and their differences.
"For whatever reason, the AARP has been coming after us," said Steve Largent, president and chief executive of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. "It is very troubling."
In the middle of the debate are people like Silvio Scocca, 77, a retired import-export broker in San Francisco.
Scocca and millions of other senior citizens are an alluring lot for the mobile phone industry, which has virtually tapped out the rest of the adult market. While about 80 percent of people 19 to 65 own mobile phones and more than 45 percent of those 10 to 18 do, only 39 percent of people 65 and older use them, according to the Yankee Group, a research firm. Moreover, older people who do use phones spend considerably less money for fewer minutes each month than do Americans under the age of 65, according to the firm.
"There are only so many 18-year-olds to market to," said Jeff Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless. "The senior population is a clear opportunity for growth."
But first marketers must overcome the concerns of Scocca and his peers, who argue that the phones are too small, are too hard to hear and cost too much. Two years ago Scocca bought service from AT&T Wireless. But he canceled it last May after the phone had sat mostly unused on his kitchen table, even though he spent $32 a month for service.
"It shouldn't be so perplexing to use," Scocca said, as he waited for lunch to be served at a YMCA in San Francisco recently.
The feeling is not universal. Some customers, like Charles R. Temple, 77, said that they had adapted to the wireless era just fine. Temple, a retired book publisher who still writes and publishes newsletters in San Francisco, said he made everyday use of his phone. Besides, he said, "It's good to have in case you faint, or stumble or get in trouble."
To create more converts, analysts said, the big phone makers are developing phones that will be easier to see and hear — and that will reverse the trend toward miniaturization.
If so, they would be mimicking efforts in Korea and Japan, where the higher penetration among older people has led to development of more elderly-friendly gadgets, said Peggy Johnson, a division president for Qualcomm, a company that makes software and computer chips used in mobile phones worldwide.
In Korea, Johnson noted, the phone maker LG recently introduced a phone with a feature that allows people to measure their glucose levels. In Japan and Korea, she said, phone makers have added tracking features used typically by young children and older people that let loved ones determine their whereabouts.
Carriers in the United States are putting pressure on phone makers to be sensitive to the needs of older users, said Alan D. Ferber, vice president for marketing for U.S. Cellular, which has 4.5 million subscribers.
Last year, in the hope of attracting more older customers, the photos in U.S. Cellular brochures started to include some of older people using cell phones. So, too, did those at Sprint; one of its brochures, from November 2003, had a picture of a white-haired woman playing with a girl, presumably her granddaughter.
Ferber said the older demographic was not only growing but was becoming more technology-savvy as baby boomers aged. "The senior of today is primarily a safety user," he said. "The senior of tomorrow has been a wireless user for 15 or 20 years."
It also is a group with a powerful lobbying arm in AARP, which Weinstock said, had begun letter and phone campaigns at the state legislative level. Its first significant effort prompted legislators to introduce a measure two months ago in New York state that would allow people to cancel their wireless phone contracts within 15 days after receiving the first bill.
The idea, Weinstock said, is to allow older people to see the full cost of their bill after taxes and surcharges have been added. She would like to take the proposal next to Pennsylvania and Illinois. The group also is lobbying Congress to require the mobile phone companies to ask consumers before including their names and phones numbers in a wireless telephone directory. The industry has said it plans to use such an "opt in" process, but consumer groups want it to be required by law, not done voluntarily by cell phone carriers.
AARP believes that if the opt-in process is not made law, the cell phone industry could ultimately decide unilaterally to put names in a cell phone directory, thus jeopardizing consumer privacy, AARP argues.
In addition, Weinstock said AARP wanted companies to publish more precise maps of their coverage areas. That way, she said, people who use a phone infrequently or for emergencies only, will not be surprised to find it does not work as expected.
In each of the last five years, AARP has asked members what service or product they would most like AARP to provide and cell phone service was the No. 1 answer. The organization is considering marketing its own branded plan, by reselling access to the network of a major phone carrier.
In the meantime, AARP plans to try to make the existing companies more responsive to older customers' needs.
"I don't see how the industry is not going to have to stand up and take notice," Weinstock said.
Gene Kimmelman, executive director of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said AARP had another motive — getting its own membership to take notice.
He said that the lobbying group angered a lot of its members last year during a brutal fight over the future of Medicare. AARP is taking on telecommunications issues in a way it hasn't in many years, he said.
"AARP is trying to get more in tune with its members' day-to-day needs," Kimmelman said. "This is an obvious issue where they can tap into resentment and confusion over cell phones — and score a lot of points with members."
Weinstock disputed the view that internal dynamics were driving the matter. She did say that the emphasis on telecommunications was not new on the state level, though AARP was exerting new effort at the federal level.
"We took up the wireless issue because it's a big issue and consumers are unhappy about it," she said.