Dear Friends and wireless professionals,

I have some interesting news for you this week, but first my regular disclaimer:

This is my weekly newsletter about Wireless Data and Radio Paging. You are receiving this message because you have either communicated with me in the past about a wireless topic, or your address was included in another e-mail that I received. This is not a SPAM. If you have received this message in error, and you are not interested in these topics, please click here, then click on "send" and you will be promptly removed from the mailing list.

This week's newsletter is a little longer than usual with several photos of pagers and other graphics. Please feel free to forward this to anyone else who might be interested.

THE MOTOROLA / MULTITONE DEAL
You read about the Motorola / Multitone deal falling through two weeks ago here in this newsletter. Everyone else read about it this week in RCR Wireless News.

TWO-WAY PAGERS
Buzz on the street about the new entrants into the big vacuum left by the exit of Motorola and Glenayre continues. It looks like the exclusivity given by Hoseo Telnet to Nixxo to market ReFLEX™ devices as announced here previously (April 19th issue) only applies to consumer products. Hoseo Telnet, the design firm, may be planning to market their telemetry product direct to ReFLEX carriers.

Now for a quick summary of the players. You can click-through the following links and you will know as much about the new two-way devices as anyone does -- except for a few insiders.

Advantra subscriber devices (photo below)

Advantra telemetry devices

http://www.w-innovations.com <--- Lance Decker is representing Advantra in the USA.

http://www.smartsynch.com/creatalink/overview.htm <--- SmartSynch CreataLink® formerly made by Motorola.

http://www.daouri.net/~hunetec <--- HuneTec subscriber device.
This is a great-looking product (photo below). I hear that they are doing very well with its development and have even designed their own chip set. The president, CEO, and founder of HuneTec is the highly respected Mr. Young han Youn who was also the cofounder of Standard Telecom -- the parent corporation of Nixxo -- in South Korea.

http://www.nixxousa.com/products/prod_2waypg_01_01.asp <--- Nixxo USA
A strong player, they are very active in promoting their two-way pager (photo below).

http://www.hstelnet.com/eng <--- Hoseo Telnet
This is the engineering design firm behind many of the South Korean wireless products. Hoseo is pronounced "HO SAW." (Photo of their two-way pager below.)

http://www.percomm.com <--- Percomm
Those who have seen this company's new product (no photo yet) say it looks pretty good. Still not much on their web site except the press release which I reported two weeks ago saying they had Motorola licenses for the development of a ReFLEX™ chipset, a telemetry module, and subscriber devices.

I currently have no commercial relationship with any of these two-way device manufacturers or distributors. The information above has been presented to you only because it is newsworthy.

NEW TWO-WAY SYSTEMS
Believe it or not, there are several companies in different countries that are in various stages of implementing new ReFLEX systems. This is good news. I am in touch with a couple of them who are conducting marketing and feasibility studies. Others are reported to be in the process of buying the infrastructure from Glenayre. We all know that Glenayre has said several times that they were not going to sell any more two-way infrastructure, but evidently they don't turn anyone down who is able to pay up front. This is very encouraging.

TWO-WAY IN CHINA
As far as the PRC goes, Henry Chung in Singapore sent in the following very interesting report. Henry is the expert on all things paging in Asia. He is a really nice guy and highly respected by everyone who has worked with him. Thanks Henry.

"It is 915-917 MHz for uplink and 279-281 MHz for downlink. The spectrum was 'reserved' for 2-way paging, but it never grant for operation. In fact, the only trial conducted in ReFLEX in China was done on US NBPCS spectrum at a very remote city whereby GSM spectrum (901-902 MHz) is still not fully allocated due to lack of population of the city.

ReFLEX based on the proposed China spectrum never been done due to lack of ReFLEX device operated in 900/280 MHz. However, Nexus and GWCom (280 MHz and 800 MHz CDPD spectrum) conducted the trial in China based on the proposed spectrum several years ago, but so far other than GWCom, there is no commercial operation till today. The latest I heard from the Chinese regulator is that 'they no longer holding the reserved spectrum for such applications'."

Now you know.

For many years, in my Wheel of Fortune presentation, I have been promoting the use of paging channels to send news, weather, and sports info to LED signs. One company has become the leader in this field. Their name is Ticker Communications and they are located in Winnipeg, Manitoba -- Canada. They are the experts in this exciting business concept. We would like to set up strategic alliances in each country where they can transmit news and sports scores to signs. If you are interested in participating in this, please check out their site on the web and then get in touch with me. http://www.tickercom.com<--- click here to visit Ticker Communications

These are a great bunch of guys at Ticker and I think they are going to be quite successful with their "news and sports over wireless" operation. They are already forming alliances to broadcast the scores of this summer's world soccer cup in South Korea and Japan. Now is the time to start setting up these circuits so they will be ready in time for the games.

Their news and sports service is starting to catch on in Latin America and even in Europe. Ticker is still looking for agents in several countries. Let me know if you would like to sell their products and services in your country. There are still some opportunities available in some countries -- they haven't all been taken yet. It is a great way to advertise (electronically) and the food and beverage companies love the service. All you need in your local area is an alphanumeric paging capcode, preferably on a 900 MHz FLEX channel, and then Ticker can send their news-feed to the LED sign, over the Internet, and through your local paging company. It's like a giant pager that lots of people can read. And yes, they can do Spanish too.

One of my favorite old jokes is, "How do you tell when someone is really smart? ....When they agree with your ideas!" Well, these guys are really smart!

ONE-WAY PAGERS
It looks like I may lose a couple of my pager lines because of requirements for exclusively representing them. I am, however, getting a lot of interest in the eTouch pager. It is a 900 MHz, alphanumeric, synthesized model that costs between $40 and $50 depending on the quantity ordered. It is a very feature-rich pager, and can be programmed over-the-air (OTA) as well as manually. It was featured in my March 15th newsletter. It is made by the same company in Taiwan, the TELLUS Group, that makes the great little PDR (paging data receiver) which works sort of like a radio modem, 900 MHz FLEX in and serial ASCII out. The PDRs cost between $50 and $70 depending on the quantity ordered. I think that new products at these prices are a much better investment than used products. Check out the web site at: http://www.digitprocom.com/product.htm

You can order these products directly from their US distributor Mr. Steve Lan at DigitPro Communications in California. Contact him by e-mail stevel@digitprocom.com <--- by clicking here

CREATALINK TELEMETRY UNITS
WaveWare Technologies here in Dallas still has a few CreataLinks in stock. They are 900 MHz, with the RS-232 serial port, TTL outputs, and the external antenna jack, so they are relatively expensive. The price is $105 each. If you buy some these from WaveWare, please mention my name. You can contact Mike Hermes by e-mail at: mike.hermes@wirelessmessaging.com <--- click here to e-mail Mike.

CONSULTING SERVICES
I had my good friend Jerry Vargas over for lunch yesterday. Jerry, reported to me when I managed Motorola's Latin America Paging Infrastructure group a few years ago in Boynton Beach, Florida. We were responsible for 47 markets in Latin America and the Caribbean and Jerry managed the paging systems engineering group. Later he moved from Florida to the Ft. Worth paging plant where he was one of Motorola's top paging-systems engineers in the FLEX and ReFLEX product groups. He has BSEE and MSEE degrees and is at home both in the laboratory and in the field. I am fortunate to count him as a friend and a colleague. I don't want to embarrass Jerry, (he gets a copy of this newsletter) but I don't know anyone that I would trust more than him when it comes to paging systems design. If you need some assistance with a paging project, then think about using us (one or both of us) as consultants. Since neither of us are working right now, we would be available immediately to help you, and would welcome the opportunity. We are both bilingual (Spanish-English). If we may be of any assistance, please read this and then get in touch with us.

BACK ISSUES
Copies of this issue, and my previous wireless newsletters are located at: http://braddye.com/newsletters.html.