The Senate Republican Conference will begin offering its recess packets and other information wirelessly to the Palm Pilot VIIs used currently by 11 Republican senators. Avantgo powers the service. The Republican Conference estimates that it costs $1,800 per recess to prepare the issue packets for its members. It is hoped that the Palm VII/Avantgo system will reduce this cost, said Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), when he announced the service.
The Communications for Coordinated Assistance and Response to Emergencies Alliance has sent open letters to the chairmen of DaimlerChrysler AG and General Motors Inc. thanking them for their use of automatic crash information in some of their vehicles. DaimlerChrysler offers Tele Aid in all of its 2001 Mercedes-Benz models in North America. More than 1 million GM cars are equipped with the OnStar system. “Through the use of Batman in your advertising, you have made the entire automotive industry take notice of [automatic crash notification] and the other safety benefits of telematics,” said the ComCARE Alliance in its letter to GM Chairman Jack Smith Jr.
The Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies is supporting the Death Tax Elimination Act of 2001. The bill would phase out the federal estate tax over a 10-year period, repeal the federal gift and generation-skipping transfer tax and maintain the current step-up in tax basis of assets received for a decedent. OPASTCO has made its views known through a publicly released letter to Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.) and testimony before the Senate Finance taxation and IRS oversight subcommittee. The estate tax repeal bill has become controversial as some very rich Americans have said that it does not need to be repealed. OPASTCO disagreed in its letter to Dunn, saying that money spent by small family-owned rural telecom companies on federal estate tax planning cannot be used to upgrade their telecom networks.
