Gemini and Mobile Telephony – A Quick discussion

Yesterday I had a chat with Google Gemini about mobile telephony. Specifically I was discussing Galaxus, Wingo and Coop Mobile. I told it that I was interested in a mobile plan in the same price range as Galaxus but using Swisscom as the mobile network rather than Sunrise.

In the process of telling it about the Coop plans it told me go for Wingo, and specific promotion plan, rather than others. It kept insisting that I should go for a certain plan. It also kept saying "but if you go for option A you still have the network coverage issue, whereas if you go for plan B you will not have that issue and you will get precisely what you want, because that plan/promotion is specifically designed to compete with Galaxus.

Stages of Answers

As you ask questions the LLM carries out web searches and reads information from a number of sites, and then it gives you a written answer, as well as a summary table. This makes it easy to skim through the answer, and then read the comparison between plans more easily.

Comparis provides something similar for a fraction of the computing power and cost. The key difference is that in one case you get a conversation, and in the other you’re reading the fine print and spotting the differences.

You can see how AI models could be trained and programmed to push you towards one option, rather than another, without having as much nuance as an impartial person might have. I got the impression that the answers were biased, not because it was paid to push one solution, rather than the other, but because it thought one factor was key, without considering things like the price of a contract in the long run.

A 19 CHF contract, that might have poor coverage in bars, and the mountains might not justify a 120 CHF per year increase in contract price.

A Different Telephony Model

For years when we had a mobile plan we committed to one to two years at a time, especially if we wanted a phone to be included with the plan. These days the market is saturated with everyone having a personal phone, and possibly a work phone. In such a market, therefore, it makes sense to offer plans that are versatile.

30 CHF for Unlimited Data Locally, and Possibly Roaming

I noticed that quite a few contracts from Wingo and Coop mobile are for about 27-29 CHF per month, with a two month termination window. This means that if you decide to end the contract you need to decide two months ahead of time.

Of Sporadic Coverage and Multiple Esims

On a hike or two, when it came time to buy train tickets or bus tickets I couldn’t. I had to connect to restaurant wifi. At the end of rides, when I am in a café I need to connect to their wifi network in order to upload the ride, and look at Strava and more. In practice it’s an opportunity to live in the moment.

And Finally

During the conversation I felt that Gemini became object fixated, rather than thinking more broadly. It kept pushing one plan, that is sporadic, over, and over again. It felt like it was trying to hard sell that plan, rather than help provide people with a broader appreciation of the options.

I also feel the AI model should have looked for nuance and asked more questions to get a better understanding of the requirements. It felt as if it was object fixated and looking to sell something specific. That’s fine, if it’s an AI chat client belonging to a specific telecom operator, but not when it is hypothetically neutral.

And finally I’d like to play with this query again in a few weeks and see how it evolves with time.