The cellular industry is getting ready to enter its teen years and-just like human counterparts-is expected to be affected by growing pains, although they’re more likely to be technological than hormonal.
And while during these turbulent teen years, one may wonder why the industry didn’t stay that sweet little analog, voice manufacturer and service provider that appealed only to business users, the mature, mass-market, digital and data-capable cellular industry seems to hold much promise.
Tom Ross, a wireless analyst with Economic and Management Consultants International Inc., said this period of history will be an important time line in the evolution of the cellular industry. I couldn’t agree more.
Cellular operators are expanding their footprints through personal communications services spectrum, ready to meet the digital challenge (and even in that debate, giving customers a choice in the wireless future) and beginning to focus on data offerings to further increase revenues and again, give more options to cellular users.
Meanwhile, the appeal to the mass market is obvious with companies like Boston Chicken offering a special cellular number to place a fast-food order. These are services the masses can live with!
But even as all this money is being spent on technological advances and marketing strategies, telecom companies seem to be forgetting one crucial aspect of their business-their names.
What with acquisitions, ventures and limited partnerships, everybody seems to be changing their names these days. It’s enough to make a journalist crazy!
RCR recently received a news release from a company call Brite. It looked like Brite Voice Systems Inc., made the same product as Brite Voice Systems Inc., was even located in the same area as Brite Voice, but no mention of the word Brite Voice in the copy. A quick call to Brite Voice assured me that the companies were in fact one and the same, and although the company’s official name was Brite Voice Systems Inc., it wanted to be known as Brite henceforth.
I understand this, working for RCR (Radio Communications Report) Publications Inc.
Nevertheless, a few companies are trying my patience. Wireless Co. L.P., the consortium of Sprint Corp. and three cable TV companies, does not like to be called WirelessCo L.P. because that was their name only for the PCS auction. OK, but we knew who they were. Now, they’re calling themselves the Sprint Wireless Telecommunications Venture. (The generic Sprint-cable consortium also is a mouthful.)
Bell Atlantic Corp. and Nynex Corp.’s combined cellular operations unit is now Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile. BANM is not a great acronym and evidently Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile feels that way too, because they’re not using it. In the same week, Comsat RSI acquired a majority interest in Plexsys International Corp. The company will trade as Comsat RSI Plexsys Wireless Systems.
Now that AirTouch and U S West are getting ready to merge operations, are we to expect the new venture will be called AirTouch U S West Communications Inc.? It tends to make the BANM name look short. (And remember how some people snickered about the AirTouch moniker.)
Maybe it’s just a stage they’re going through.
