Cell Phone Franchise Continues To Grow

Now that the cell phone has become an indispensable electronic tool of the modern age - everyone from grade-schoolers to seniors seems to use one - the growth of associated retail stores to sell and service calling plans and phones to supply the seemingly endless demand continues unabated, despite the sluggish economy.

As a franchisee of Wireless Zone, Jeff Swackhammer is bullish on Western Pennsylvania, including Washington County, where he recently opened a Wireless Zone store in Trinity Point, South Strabane Township.

The 22-year-old franchise, which began as "The Car Phone Store" in 1988, is today the official retail store for Verizon Wireless with 400 units in 11 states.

Wireless Zone has become the nation's largest premium wireless retail franchisor and was ranked the No.1 franchise in its category by Entrepreneur magazine.

Swackhammer, of Fox Chapel, who has six other Wireless Zone stores in Western Pennsylvania, said the Washington area - which already has a Wireless Zone store in Washington Crown Center operated by another franchisee - appealed to him because of its demographics. He said he hopes to have a total of 10 stores in the region by the end of this year, and isn't ruling out Washington County as a candidate for another store.

In addition to selling Verizon's calling plans and equipment, Swackhammer and Wireless Zone Vice President of Franchise Development Sean Fitzgerald said the franchise is working with Verizon and Google's Droid smartphone technology to combat texting while driving.

While both men said they support Pennsylvania's attempts to pass legislation banning texting while driving, they said some phones' technologies already makes it possible to halt texting from moving vehicles.

The franchise if offering its "Textecution" service free of charge to anyone who has Google's Droid smartphones to prevent the use of the texting function while in a moving vehicle. According to Fitzgerald the software uses the phones' global positioning software to detect motion greater than 5 to 7 miles per hour to automatically turn off e-mail and texting services

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