Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the top headlines from the past. Fire up the time machine, put on the sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and enjoy the memories!
First e911 deadline nears
The Federal Communications Commission’s Phase I E911 deadline is set for Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean that dispatchers across the nation this week will begin receiving the extra information called for in the mandate. Phase I requires carriers to relay the Automatic Number Identification of the originator of a 911 call and the location of the cell site or base station receiving the call to the designated public safety answering point. Covered carriers are required to comply with the mandate by Wednesday, provided that the PSAPs had requested the service by Oct. 1, 1997. Carriers were required by Oct. 1 to have initiated actions necessary to provide Phase I services, said an FCC order released Dec. 23. According to the FCC mandate, though, Phase I requirements only apply if the carrier receives a request for the service from a PSAP that is capable of receiving and using the service, and if a cost-recovery method is in place. … Read more
TMI envisions satellite-based packet data network
TORONTO-TMI Communications announced it launched a new mobile packet data network available in all 50 states and in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean using its MSAT geostationary satellite. TMI said the service is aimed at mobile data users with people and equipment in remote areas outside of terrestrial network coverage. In particular, the service is aimed at those sending messages with typical lengths ranging from 10 to 1,000 bytes, sent or received every 10 to 60 minutes. Users pay only for the information sent, the company said. … Read more
Paging hits its peak, analyst firm says
Strategy Analytics, a research firm based in Delafield, Wis., gave perhaps the most conservative forecast of the paging industry to date during a teleconference coinciding with the release of its report, titled “U.S. Paging Market Status and Forecast.” Ann Lynch, a researcher at Strategy Analytics, said that while the paging installed base grew 17 percent last year, and will continue to grow in the coming years, the industry can expect its number to level off and shrink after 2004. “Paging is at the peak of its life cycle, riding the crest of a wave right now,” Lynch said. Annual growth has fallen since its peak in 1995 and will continue to fall through 2003.The report projected a total installed base of 54.5 million by 2003. Of that number, 45 percent will be numeric users, 38 percent alphanumeric or guaranteed delivery alphanumeric users, 8 percent interactive or canned-response two-way users and 7 percent voice, the group predicted. “The pressures facing the paging industry today are enormous,” she said. … Read more
Paging as golden goose or just a goose egg?
NEW YORK-“The challenge for the paging industry is to reinvent itself so it can become a free cash-flow business, to put the brakes on capital expenditures and drive up revenues while unit growth is declining,” said Brian G. Coleman, a director of Toronto Dominion Securities USA Inc., New York. The stampede that started in the mid-1990s to paging resellers as a means to boost customer numbers has led to unrealistic inflation in growth expectations. This resulted in an expensive network expansion boom that couldn’t be paid for out of new customer additions because of high churn rates and low average revenue per subscriber associated with these distribution channels, according to Cynthia M. Motz, vice president of Credit Suisse First Boston, New York. During the past year or so, “the power has shifted back to the carriers, which don’t have to put up with price undercutting from the resellers,” said Jeanine Oburchay, associate director of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., New York. … Read more
Fifty bucks for unlimited PalmPilot use
HACKENSACK, N.J.-GoAmerica Communications Corp. introduced a new pricing plan that offers unlimited wireless data access for PalmPilot users with Novatel Wireless Inc.’s new Minstrel wireless IP (Internet Protocol) modem and GoAmerica’s Go.Mail and Go.Web service features.
The plan is priced at $50 per month to customers signing up for six months of service. GoAmerica also offers a $15 plan that includes 50 kilobytes of compressed data. Both plans include the Go.Mail and Go.Web software, which provides wireless access to e-mail and Web-based services, said GoAmerica. … Read more
Navigating the D.C. lobbying waters
The wireless industry, having been defeated on Capitol Hill and Bunker Hill by environmentalists, organized labor and soccer moms, has turned to John Q. Public, Marcus Welby, M.D. and Ivan to makes its case. And what a wonderful strategy shift it is. Better late than never. For too long, the wireless industry has wasted time trying to advance policy with a worn, one-dimensional approach consisting of costly courtesy calls to Congress and the FCC on legislative and regulatory issues ranging from antenna siting to universal service. Finally, the wireless industry is reaching outside the Beltway to sell wireless technology as a revolutionary public safety tool and a new choice for consumers in the $100 billion local telephone monopoly market. Traditional lobbying is still of value, but its usefulness is diminishing. This should be clear to the wireless industry by now. Efforts to pre-empt local regulation of antenna siting failed miserably. And a Tauzin-McCain work-in-progress on E911/federal antenna siting, while lofty in purpose and vision, translates into legislation of doubt. … Read more
Serving up Java to the wireless industry
Further extending its reach into the wireless industry, Sun Microsystems Inc. announced it has signed an agreement giving L.M. Ericsson license to use and distribute its PersonalJava platform and Java Application Environment. The Ericsson announcement comes less than two months after Motorola Inc. announced it signed a licensing agreement with Sun to incorporate the full family of Java technologies into its entire portfolio of consumer and embedded products, which Sun called Java’s largest licensing agreement. Other wireless manufacturers committing to Java are Nokia Corp., Texas Instruments’ Wireless Communications Business Unit, Alcatel Telecom, Northern Telecom Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. … Read more
Check out the RCR Wireless News’ Archives for more stories from the past.
