FRIDAY - DECEMBER 17, 2004 - ISSUE NO. 143 | ||
Dear friends of Wireless Messaging and Paging, The announcement of the wireless-starter-interrupt product from Payment Guardian last week produced more reader response than any other product in the history of this newsletter. I was pleasantly surprised when so many people got in touch with me for more information. We are in the process of setting up new dealers representing eight or nine countries and about the same number of US states. This is a good business opportunity and everyone likes it. The people selling the product like it because it is easy to cost-justify to car dealers. The car dealers like it because it dramatically reduces delinquencies and repossessions, and the people buying cars and trucks like it because it allows them to purchase a vehicle in spite of less-than-perfect credit. Of course the wireless control of the device is over a one-way paging system. If you would like to get involved with distributing this great new product, please call me or send me an e-mail, and I will tell you more about it. I continue to use the Skype VoIP service to talk computer-to-computer over the Internet whenever possible. If you want to try this free program, download it, and call me. My "phone number" is "braddye." (I have no business relationship with Skype—I am just an enthusiastic user.) Special thanks to Bill Tartaglia for pointing out an error in the report on UL Approvals for pagers in hazardous atmospheres. See it in the READERS COMMENTS section below. It is really good to have readers who are experts and who are willing to help us keep the information reported here correct. And now on to this week's Wireless Messaging news and views. | Promoting Wireless Messaging, Telemetry, and Paging.
A new issue of The Wireless Messaging Newsletter gets posted on the web each week. A notification goes out by e-mail to subscribers on most Fridays around noon Eastern US time. The notification message has a link to the actual newsletter on the Internet. That way it doesn't fill up your incoming e-mail account. There is no charge for subscription and there are no membership restrictions. Readers are a very select group of wireless industry professionals, and include the senior managers of many of the world's major paging and wireless data companies. There is an even mix of operations managers, marketing people, and engineers, so I try to include items of interest to all three groups. It's all about staying up-to-date with business trends and technology. I regularly get reader's comments, so this newsletter has become a community forum for the paging, and wireless data communities. You are welcome to contribute your ideas and opinions. Unless otherwise requested, all correspondence addressed to me is subject to publication in the newsletter and on my website. NOTE: This newsletter is best viewed at screen resolutions of 800x600 (good) or 1024x768 (better). Any current revision of web browser should work fine. Please notify me of any problems with viewing. This site is compliant with XHTML 1.0 transitional coding for easy access from wireless devices. (XML 1.0/ISO 8859-1.) |
WIRELESS NEWS | |||
USA Mobility Names Thomas L. Schilling Chief Financial Officer Thursday December 16, 3:28 pm ET ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—USA Mobility, Inc. (Nasdaq: USMO - News) today announced the hiring and appointment of Thomas L. Schilling as chief financial officer. The appointment will become effective on January 3, 2005. Vincent D. Kelly, president and chief executive officer, stated: "We are extremely pleased to have Tom join the USA Mobility team. He is a seasoned financial executive, fully embraces our free cash flow strategy and has held key positions in organizations such as MCI and Sprint, where his strategic and operational direction produced substantial cost savings, operational efficiencies and increased profitability. Tom will be responsible for our overall financial operations, including accounting, reporting, treasury, tax, financial planning and integration." Schilling has more than 18 years of financial and operational management experience in the communications industry, including positions with MCI, Inc., Sprint Communications Co. LP, and Cincinnati Bell, Inc. Most recently he was chief financial officer of Cincinnati Bell where he helped with a comprehensive financial restructuring and the sale of the company's broadband subsidiary. He had previously served as CFO of Cincinnati Bell's Broadwing Communications subsidiary and oversaw its IT consulting services business unit. Previously, Schilling spent eight years with MCI in various financial management roles including business planning, pricing and mergers and acquisitions, and four years with Sprint in financial management and corporate development positions. He has also served as CFO of Autotrader.com. Schilling has a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Indiana University. Source: YAHOO! FINANCE Sprint to buy Nextel in $36 billion deal Wed Dec 15, 2004 10:22 AM ET NEW YORK, Dec 15 (Reuters)—Sprint Corp. on Wednesday agreed to buy mobile telephone company Nextel Communications Inc. in a deal worth $36.3 billion to gain more business customers and more airwaves to transmit calls. The deal, which was widely expected, would combine the No. 3 and No. 5 U.S. wireless carriers and create a new company with about 40 million customers, greatly narrowing the gap with industry leaders Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless. Sprint plans to spin off its local telephone business to shareholders of the new company, to be called Sprint Nextel, as part of the deal. The transaction values Nextel at $32.63 per share based on Tuesday's closing prices, representing a premium of almost 9 percent over Nextel's closing price of $29.99 on Nasdaq on Tuesday. Nextel shares fell 10 cents to $29.89 in morning trade on Nasdaq, while Sprint shares fell 21 cents to $24.89 on the New York Stock Exchange. The merger will attempt to smoothly combine 39 million customers using two divergent networks. Nextel has aimed its popular "push-to-talk" walkie-talkie service mostly at business consumers, who account for roughly three-fourths of its customer base. That ratio of business to consumers is flipped at Sprint, which has had a greater emphasis on retail customers and data services. The companies, which have a combined market capitalization of about $70 billion, had combined revenue of $40 billion for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, including about $6 billion from Sprint's local telephone business. Sprint and Nextel said they expect savings of about $12 billion from the deal, from reductions in capital spending and operating costs. Sprint Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Forsee said there would be job cuts, but he did not provide specifics. After its recent merger with AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless said it would cut about 10 percent of its work force, or 7,000 jobs. Sprint and Nextel said they were forecasting integration costs of $1 billion to $1.3 billion in 2006, and an additional $200 million to $500 million in 2007. The deal leaves T-Mobile USA, owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, a distant fourth among U.S. national wireless carriers, with about 16.3 million customers. Under the terms of the deal, existing Sprint shares will remain outstanding and Nextel shares will be converted into shares of the new company and a small amount of cash, valuing each Nextel share at about 1.3 shares of Sprint Nextel common stock. The stock and cash allocation will be determined at the closing to ensure the local business spinoff is tax free, and the cash portion of the deal will not exceed $2.8 billion. At current figures, Nextel shareholders would receive about 1.28 Sprint Nextel shares and 50 cents in cash for each Nextel share, the companies said. Sprint Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Forsee is to become CEO of the new company, and Nextel CEO Timothy Donahue will become chairman. Sprint Chief Operating Officer Len Lauer and Nextel Chief Financial Officer Paul Saleh will maintain their roles at the new company. The local telecommunications business will have its own management team and board of directors. The spun-off local telecoms business is expected to pay quarterly dividends, but Sprint Nextel plans to stop paying dividends following the spinoff, the companies said. The deal, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, is expected to close in the second half of 2005. Analysts widely expect regulators to approve the deal. The new company, over time, will move Nextel's network to the same technology that Sprint uses. Source: REUTERS
ZigBee Alliance Finalizes Specification ZigBee Alliance Reaches Major Milestone Toward A Global Interoperable Standard San Ramon, Calif. – December 14, 2004 – The ZigBee Alliance has ratified the first ZigBee™ specification making the development and deployment of extremely power efficient, cost effective, low data rate monitoring, control and sensing networks a reality. This on-time delivery of the specification is the culmination of two years of worldwide development and interoperability testing by the more than 100 member companies within the ZigBee Alliance. For those members that have already announced ZigBee-ready technology, the ratification of the specification enables them to quickly enhance their products and begin testing to obtain ZigBee compliant certification. All Alliance members have complete and exclusive access to the final specification and will continue to participate in ongoing interoperability testing to verify that their products are ZigBee-compliant. "The announcement of the ZigBee specification is a major milestone in wireless networking," said Andrew Wale, vice president of Business Development, Advance Transformer Company, A Division of Philips Electronics North America Corporation. "ZigBee is poised to become the leading wireless technology for a myriad of uses ranging from building automation to industrial and residential applications. As a member of the Alliance, we have been following closely the development and ratification of the specification and look forward to bringing innovative new products to consumers using the ZigBee technology." Now that the ZigBee specification has been ratified, the Alliance will continue to validate the specification through expanded interoperability and scalability tests and future enhancements. The Alliance will actively promote the use of ZigBee-enabled technology in real-world applications to foster new, creative applications for the market, as well as to facilitate the broad market adoption of the ZigBee standard around the world. “The adoption of the ZigBee specification gives member companies the opportunity to capitalize on this innovative technology for monitoring, sensing and control applications in residential and commercial environments,” said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance. “We are excited to reach such a significant milestone in the development of the global ZigBee specification. Given the number of ZigBee-ready products announced in 2004, we anticipate seeing ZigBee-compliant consumer products as soon as early-2005.” ZigBee is the only standards-based technology designed to address the unique needs of low cost, low-power, wireless sensor networks for remote monitoring, home control, and building automation network applications in the industrial and consumer markets. To learn more about ZigBee, to see a full list of ZigBee members, or to join the Alliance, please visit the newly updated Alliance Web site at http://www.zigbee.org/. ZigBee: Wireless Control That Simply Works # # # All company, brand, and product names may be trademarks that are the sole property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. For further information contact: Source: ZigBee Alliance Press Release Appeals court: RIM violated patents Published: December 14, 2004, 12:55 PM PST A federal appeals court affirmed that Research In Motion has infringed on holding company NTP's patents but can continue selling its products in the United States pending a district court's decision. In a decision handed down late Tuesday morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., reversed an injunction from a Richmond, Va., trial court's decision and passed the case back to the district court. "The judgment and the injunction are vacated, and the case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings," the court said in its decision. "We also conclude that the district court correctly found infringement." RIM declined to comment for this story. Analysts, however, see the court's decision as a mixed bag. "The decision has bought RIM some time," said Pablo Perez-Fernandez, a research analyst at Stanford Financial Group. "The decision is somewhat positive for RIM because it has postponed a final decision, and they can continue selling products unimpeded." However, the decision is also a matter of semantics, according to Perez-Fernandez. The district court will determine if errors in the case claim swayed previous decisions--and if not, how much RIM will pay in damages. Five claims remain in question, and a possible injunction still looms in the event that the district court sides with NTP. The appeals court ruled in favor of NTP on 11 other claims. "The decision was virtually a total victory for NTP," said Chris Renk, a patent attorney with Banner & Witcoff. The big if is the significance of the remaining claims, which may be of "little solace" to RIM if the district court finds they had no impact on previous rulings, Renk said. Any injunction against RIM would lock the Waterloo, Ontario-based company out of North America, its largest market. Postmortem victory? "We're happy to see the court validate Mr. Campana's technology by affirming the infringement of most claims, and we're confident we'll win the remainder of the claims," said Kevin Anderson, an attorney for NTP. "It's unfortunate he isn't here to see this." Investors seemed unsure how to react to the ruling, which, while giving RIM some hope, dealt the company a blow with its affirmation of patent infringement. Upon the decision's release Tuesday, RIM shares shot up almost $9 per share, or about 10 percent, to $98.81. Shares then dipped back down before Nasdaq halted trading. When trading resumed in the afternoon, shares were down $3.59, or about 4 percent, to $86.50. RIM's BlackBerry devices and messaging service allow individuals wireless always-on access to e-mail and corporate data on portable devices. The companies have been embroiled in a patent infringement case for a number of years. NTP claims that RIM violates its patents covering the use of radio frequency wireless communications in e-mail systems. The appeals court heard oral arguments from both companies' attorneys on June 7. A district court judge and a jury had previously ruled in favor of NTP on two separate occasions. RIM appealed the validity of NTP's patents but not royalty terms or an injunction preventing the BlackBerry company from making, using or offering to sell handhelds, services or software in the United States. The injunction was stayed following appeal. A federal jury determined in late 2002 that Research In Motion infringed on NTP patents and ordered RIM to pay $23 million to the holding company. RIM appealed the decision. NTP again won in 2002, this time in a ruling by a district court judge who awarded NTP $53.7 million. An injunction was also granted to NTP preventing RIM from making, using or offering to sell handhelds, services or software in the United States. The injunction will remain in effect until the date of expiration of NTP's patents, the latest of which is May 20, 2012. The court then stayed that injunction, pending an appeal of the validity of NTP's patents by the Canadian company. RIM has also been seeking a re-examination of NTP's patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A decision is pending. The United States is RIM's largest market, but the monetary award didn't stop the company's momentum here. RIM has announced several consecutive quarters of profitability, raised almost $1 billion in cash and signed up over 2 million subscribers to its always-on e-mail service. Source: c|net News.Com FCC OK's wireless Net access on flights Agency also will rethink in-flight cellphone ban By Associated Press | December 16, 2004 WASHINGTON—Domestic air travelers could be surfing the Web by 2006 with government-approved technology that allows people access to high-speed Internet connections while they fly. "We are pushing the frontiers in order to bring the information age to all corners of the world," Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell said yesterday after a unanimous vote approving the new technology for US airlines. "We want it on the land, in the air, and on the sea." The FCC also voted to solicit public comment about ending the ban on in-flight use of cellphones. Among the issues to consider are whether passengers want to be surrounded by cellphone conversations. "The ability to communicate is a vital one, but good cellphone etiquette is also essential," commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said. "Our job is to see if this is possible and then let consumers work out the etiquette." The FCC approved a wireless Internet offering from Boeing Co. that uses satellites to get air travelers online. Boeing's "Connexion" service is offered by some international carriers, including some flights to and from the United States. Domestic carriers have shied away from it in large part because of the cost of outfitting planes with the technology, estimated to be about $500,000 per jet. Currently, the only way passengers on domestic flights can communicate with the ground is through phones usually built into seatbacks. That service isn't very popular: It costs far more than conventional or cellphones—about $3.99 a minute—and the reception often is poor. The FCC yesterday approved a measure to restructure how such "air-to-ground" services are used and allow the airlines to offer wireless high-speed Internet connections through the frequencies used by the seatback phones. Left undecided was how many companies the FCC would allow, through an auction, to offer the services. Source: Boston.com | |||
READER'S COMMENTS | |||
From: "Bill Tartaglia" <btartaglia@mon2way.com> Brad, My $0.02. Your comments about devices not being granted UL approval for GAS environments is not correct. The opposite is true. If you look up the meaning of Groups A, B, C, and D, they all have to do with GAS not dust. Groups E, F, and G are the certifications not being granted. They pertain to dusts. All new 1 way and 2 way devices have a good chance to get approval for Division II, Groups ABCD. The primary reason for not granting approval for EFG is because the device would have to be absolutely airtight, which presents problems for the keyboard and speaker when trying to make a low cost paging device. I have been personally involved in many UL device approval projects in the last 4 years so this is a well discussed topic along the way. Class I, Group A — Atmospheres containing acetylene. Class I, Group B — Atmospheres containing acrolein, butadiene, ethylene oxide, propylene oxide, hydrogen, or fuel and combustible process gases containing more than 30 percent hydrogen by volume. Class I, Group C — Atmospheres containing ethyl ether, ethylene, or gases or vapors of equivalent hazard. Class I, Group D — Atmospheres containing acetone, ammonia, benzene, butane, cyclopropane, ethanol, gasoline, hexane, methane, methanol, naphtha, propane, or gases or vapors of equivalent hazard. Class II, Group E — Atmospheres containing combustible metal dusts, including aluminum, magnesium, and their commercial alloys, or other combustible dusts whose particle size, abrasiveness, and conductivity present an equivalent hazard. Class II, Group F — Atmospheres containing carbon black, charcoal, coal or coke dusts which have more than 8 percent total volatile material (carbon black per ASTM D1620, charcoal, coal and coke dusts per ASTM D271) or atmospheres containing these dusts sensitized by other materials so that they present an explosion hazard. Class II, Group G — Atmospheres containing combustible dusts not included in Group E or F, including flour, grain, wood, plastic and chemicals. |
THE PAYMENT GUARDIAN |
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Wireless Overview System Operation Payment Guardian requires absolutely no customer interaction and integrated seamlessly into the vehicles electrical system and is not visible to the customer, decreasing the possibility of tampering. Unlike other similar products on the market, Payment Guardian™ requires no keypads or input devices, eliminating the hassle of having to generate codes and giving those codes to the customer each and every payment cycle. With Payment Guardian?, lenders no longer have to rely on customers to enter codes into a keypad correctly. With Payment Guardian, only non paying customers require use of the system. Once the system has been activated in the customer’s vehicle—each time the ignition is turned to the OFF position, Payment Guardian reminds the customer that payment has not yet been received or insurance is not current and provides them with specific instructions to contact the leinholder immediately. If the reminder is ignored, you can simply activate Payment Guardian’s Starter Interrupt feature allowing no one to start the vehicle until the system is reset. Payment Guardian’s system control center has been designed to meet the different need of individual lenders and dealers that want a total customized solution to manage their systems, providing you with 3 different ways to use the systems features. This enables you to instantly activate system features, schedule activations to occur at a preset time or completely automate the systems features, allow you to just manage your systems with just a click of the mouse. System Features Audible Voice Reminder Starter Interrupt Emergency Override Vehicle Finder Door Unlock
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Paging Training Course Specially designed course for sales, marketing, and administration personnel. Engineers will only be admitted with a note signed by their mothers, promising that they will just listen and not disrupt the class. (This is supposed to be funny!) This is a one-day training course on paging that can be conducted at your place of business. Please take a look at the course outline to see if you think this might be beneficial in your employees: Paging training course outline. I would be happy to customize the content to meet your specific requirements. Although it touches on several "technical" topics, it is definitely not a technical course. I used to teach the sales and marketing people at Motorola Paging and they appreciated an atmosphere where they could ask technical questions without being made to feel like a dummy and without getting a long convoluted overly-technical answer that left them more confused than before. A good learning environment is one that is non-threatening. Let me know if you would like to receive a quotation, or if you would like to have any additional information. | ![]() | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Download Mr. Mercer's resumé. | ![]() | |||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() | hmce@bellsouth.net ![]() | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Intelligent Paging & Mobile Data Products Selective is a developer and manufacturer of highly innovative paging receiver/decoders and mobile data equipment including the PDT2000 Paging Data Terminal, THE MOST INTELLIGENT PAGING RECEIVER IN THE MARKET. The PDT2000 is a large display pager designed for desktop or in-vehicle mounting and is widely used by emergency services and in onsite paging systems for forklift dispatch etc. All of the following capabilities are standard features of the PDT2000 and of our other paging data receivers:
Our mobile data equipment includes a range of intelligent Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs) which may be interfaced to a variety of wireless networks including GPRS & CDMA cellular. Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) and GPS solutions, Dispatch & Messaging software. We offer mobile communications dealers and systems integrators a “fast to market” job dispatch and job management capability with the inbuilt job processing system which may be interfaced to a variety of CAD & JMS platforms. Specialised local area paging systems, paging interception and message reprocessing software, field force automation and mobile dispatch solutions. We do custom product development and export worldwide.
I am an authorized Manufacturer Representative for Selective Communications. Please contact me directly for any additional information. | TGA Technologies
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CUSTOM APPLICATIONS
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Prism Message Gateway Systems Your Choice of Options
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ReFLEX Two-Way Paging/Data Messaging Systems Technical Services support for existing paging systems SIMULCAST SYSTEMS ARE OUR SPECIALTY!! call (217) 221-9500 or e-mail sales@AdvancedRF.biz 301 Oak St., Suite 2-46A, Quincy, IL 62301 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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PAGING TECHNICIAN Mark Hood mehood@cox.net Telephone: 757-588-0537 Paging Field Engineer/Electronic technician in the Hampton Roads, Virginia area. Download resumé here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Remember that old word “Residuals”? The EE Group is actively seeking Dealers with sales/ service/installation capabilities to promote the latest wireless AVL, SCADA and data products from Telegauge Systems, Inc. This innovative program requires NO inventory and NO billing by your facility; you just sell it and sign up the end user to collect the commissions. Now the real reason to choose the EE Group and Telegauge over the host of others; we pay you permanent residual income every month on your airtime sales forever. Airtime commissions range up to 12% per month based on prior sales and you buy all equipment direct from the factory at 2-tiered wholesale prices as well for great margins. Telegauge builds fully 2-way overt and covert (hidden) GPS based Automatic Vehicle Location, SCADA, remote management, telemetry and data systems routed via cellular and satellite that are delivered to the end user via the Internet or direct to the desktop. Applications are both ‘canned’ and custom depending upon the customers needs. We even have full dispatch systems including credit card swipe and billing if needed. Finally, the prices on the product are guaranteed to be the LOWEST in the industry at under $600 retail for the equipment and from $6 to $30 on the monthly airtime with most customers in the $15 range. Note too that the price is the same for cellular OR satellite world wide coverage and no one else has this exclusive capability. Telegauge provides the product, software, airtime, billing and final information from a single source and you can be a BIG part of it. You stock NOTHING, just collect the checks. We are paid by the manufacturer to support YOU and unlike other factories; we never bid against you, restrict you or take your deal. We help you with demo equipment, brochures, information, sales assistance, web advertising and user name/passwords for the website so that you don’t even need to buy anything to start up fast. Contact us for a no-obligation CD of all the presentation and training material, price spreadsheets and information at: EEGroup@EEonTheWeb.com or for fast action call for a link to the Dealers Only page: 310-534-4456 and mention that you found out about it via Brad Dye’s Newsletter. You have nothing to lose and some great residual income to gain. Call or e-mail NOW. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() AAPC Mission Statement To represent paging carriers throughout the United States to ensure the success of our industry by:
Our industry must move forward together or we will perish individually. AAPC links: | High-speed simulcast paging with protocols such as POCSAG and FLEX™ requires microsecond accuracy to synchronize the transmission of digital paging signals. ![]() Zetron's Simulcast System uses GPS timing information to ensure that the broadcasted transmissions between the nodes of the Simulcast System and associated transmitters are synchronized to very tight tolerances. This system is ideal for public or private paging system operators that use multiple transmitters and wish to create new paging systems or to build out existing systems into new regions. For more information about Zetron's High Speed Simulcast Paging System, the Model 600 and Model 620, go to: www.zetron.com/paging.
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www.gtesinc.com GTES is the only Glenayre authorized software support provider in the paging industry. With over 200 years of combined experience in Glenayre hardware and software support, GTES offers the industry the most professional support and engineering development staff available. New Product Development New Hardware Platform
Continued Support Programs GTES Partner Program CALL US TODAY FOR YOUR SUPPORT NEEDS | ![]() Wireless Communication Solutions The Hark ISI-400LX is a hardware device that encapsulates serial data into TCP/IP for transmission over the Internet. It can also be configured to convert incoming TAP messages from the serial port and send them over the Internet to paging providers in email (SMTP) or Simple Network Paging Protocol (SNPP) format. The ISI-400LX with the optional external modem can connect to a secondary dial-up ISP when a failure on the ethernet port is detected. This device is the perfect companion for the Hark Gateway products. An ISI can be located at a remote location for receiving TAP, TNPP, or Billing traffic using a local ISP eliminating long distance phone charges. System Features & Benefits:
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Daviscomms USA Inc. is your direct connection to Daviscomms (S) Pte Ltd., the leading pager manufacturer in the world with many years experience in Engineering, Design, and Manufacturing of highly-reliable, premium-quality FLEX and POCSAG Alphanumeric and Numeric pagers. Daviscomms offers unparalleled quality, features and functions. We perform our own stringent quality testing as well as certification by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) to meet all of their standards. All of our paging products meet FCC and IC Standards for use in the USA and Canada. Our manufacturing facility, located in Malaysia, is a 40,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility. Customers, globally, choose Daviscomms for our QUALITY, RELIABILITY, ON-TIME DELIVERY, COMPETITIVE PRICING and our TOTAL COMMITMENT to providing the best value for their needs.
At Daviscomms, we are proud to provide our customers with end-to-end manufacturing solutions while delivering superior quality and support. Daviscomms is at the forefront of the industry with its commitment to leading-edge technology, cost-effective manufacturing and the highest degree of customer service. Daviscomms delivers low cost, high volume manufacturing solutions to our customers. We help maximize time-to-market objectives while minimizing procurement, materials management, and manufacturing costs. For information about our contract manufacturing services or our Bravo-branded line of numeric and alphanumeric pagers, please call Bob Popow, our Director of Operations for the Americas, 480-515-2344. (Scottsdale, Arizona) or visit our website www.daviscommsusa.com.
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DX Radio Systems, Inc. manufactures high quality, high specification type communications products. The following is a list of products that DX Radio Systems, Inc. manufactures or supplies as a single supplied product and can be included as part of a turnkey system:
Performance that is tough to find anywhere at a price you can afford.
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COMPUTER NEWS |
Semiconductor Breakthrough: Processor 24 times faster Posted on : 2004-12-13 Your processor can now run 24% faster at the same power levels based on the new strained silicon transistor technology, as claimed by IBM and AMD today. The New technology was named as “Dual Stress Liner”. It improves the performance of p and n channel transistors by stretching silicon atoms in one transistor and compressing them in the other transistor. New production techniques are not required, standard materials and tools can be used for volume manufacturing. AMD and IBM have jointly developed this technology; stained silicon has been made to work for the first time with silicon on insulator technology, resulting in high performance at low power. AMD’s executive vice president Dirk Meyer said "Our shared progress in developing advanced silicon technologies allows AMD to deliver today's best performance per watt." Strained silicon technology would first be integrated into all 90nm processor platforms. The multi core AMD 64 processor would also use this technology. 90nm AMD 64 would enter the market in mid 2005. IBM’s Power Architecture based chips would use this technology, products schedule for shipping in mid 2005. Lisa Su, VP Technology development & alliance at IBM and Technology Group said “Innovation has surpassed scaling as the primary driver of semiconductor technology performance improvements, this achievement with AMD demonstrates that companies willing to share their expertise and skills can find new ways to overcome roadblocks, and help lead the industry to the next generation of technology advancements” Source: EARTHtimes.org Toshiba claims hard drive storage record Perpendicular recording technology boosts data density Robert Jaques, vnunet.com 15 Dec 2004 Toshiba has developed what it claims are the world's first hard disk drives based on perpendicular recording, a technology that can boost data density on a single 1.8in hard-disk platter to 40GB. The electronics giant has incorporated the technology into its latest MK4007GAL drive which packs 40GB into a drive 5mm thick. The technique has also been used to create the 80GB MK8007GAH, which boasts the largest capacity yet achieved in the 1.8in form factor, according to Toshiba. Conventional longitudinal recording stores data on a magnetic disk as microscopic magnetic bits aligned in plane. Although advances in magnetic coatings continue to improve data recording densities on hard disk drives, Toshiba explained that the magnetic bits repulse each other due to in-plane alignment. Squeezing more bits on to a disk will eventually reach a point where crowding degrades recorded bit quality, placing fast-approaching limits on storage capacities. By standing the magnetic bits on end, perpendicular recording reinforces magnetic coupling between neighbouring bits, achieving stable higher recording densities and improved storage capacity. Commercialisation of the high density technology depends on the development of a magnetic disk structured to support perpendicular recording, a high performance perpendicular magnetic head, and disk and head integration technology that maximises the combined performance. Kazuyoshi Yamamori, vice president of the storage device division at Toshiba's Digital Media Network Company, said: "Our research confirmed the superior potential of perpendicular recording technology, and we have now achieved the core head and disk technologies required for reliable, high-density recording." Toshiba plans to start mass production of the 40GB and 80GB drives in the first and second quarters of fiscal 2005. The firm will also apply the technology to the 0.85 in hard disk drives announced in January this year, a move that will push capacity to 6GB to 8GB per platter. Source: vnunet.com |
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WI-FI / WIMAX / WIRELESS BROADBAND NEWS | |
Wi-Fi network could become nation's largest By Ryan Mahoney Atlanta's ambitious plan to create the nation's biggest citywide Wi-Fi network is no longer up in the air. This month, the entire first and second floors of City Hall, including the council chamber and offices, will become one big wireless hotspot. By March 2005, the concourses, atrium and other public areas of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport will follow suit after months of delays. From there, the network will expand to additional municipal buildings, parks and—in a notable departure from other cities' Wi-Fi (short for wireless fidelity) rollouts—office buildings, apartments, hotels, convention centers and other properties under a unique public-private partnership. Proponents say the system, known as Atlanta FastPass, will let Atlanta compete with cities traditionally viewed as more Wi-Fi friendly—like San Francisco and Seattle—attracting tech-savvy businesses, workers and tourists to the area who want to access the Internet and corporate intranets on the go. And because it is not actually run by the city and should work in conjunction with major telecom providers' own Wi-Fi networks, it also could avoid legal challenges facing municipalities in states from Florida to Pennsylvania. A Relevant idea FastPass is the latest creation of Jeff Levy and his newest venture, Biltmore Communications Inc. Levy is best known as the founder of Internet tracking firm Relevant Knowledge Inc. and he once ran the now-defunct eHatchery LLC incubator. Founded in late 2001 as Open Point Networks Inc., Biltmore's primary line of business is providing broadband services, including Wi-Fi, to Atlanta businesses and residences. The idea for FastPass was born when Levy realized he could link his customers' hotspots together, with their permission, to create a larger network accessible to all of them—and the public—through a unified login. He now has 60 private hotspots on the FastPass network, including many not installed by Biltmore—from the Georgia World Congress Center to law firm Smith Gambrell & Russell LLP—plus hundreds more at Georgia Tech and Georgia State University. In fact, Biltmore boasts more wireless access points than any other Atlanta provider. Directory service JiWire Inc. lists 229 in Atlanta and 71,145 worldwide. "We wanted a way for guests (persons other than Tech students or employees) to use Wi-Fi in areas where we have public spaces, like for conferences," said Ron Hutchins, Tech's chief technology officer. "I liked Jeff's vision." Visitors to Tech's campus pay $7.95 a day to use the network, but fees vary across the FastPass system depending on who owns the hotspots, and owners share a portion of the revenue with Biltmore. Discounted weekly and monthly passes are available in some places, and the company is speaking with national Wi-Fi providers like T-Mobile and Boingo about getting their users on the system. "We want to bring in the private sector; not just coffee shops but law firms, accounting firms," Levy said. "I believe you'll see the Cokes and Coxes get on the bandwagon once the city's up and running." His company's contract of up to five years with the city will be at the center of the FastPass system. Mayor Shirley Franklin's office has long desired to make Atlanta competitive on Wi-Fi, said city chief information officer Abe Kani, but the process didn't really begin in earnest until a request for proposals went out last year. Biltmore won the account in October and has been installing wireless equipment at City Hall and a separate wired network to support it. The city pays nothing upfront and will get 40 percent of the revenue from users who log into FastPass on city property and 10 percent from those who sign in elsewhere on the network. Pricing on city property is still undetermined, but could be as low as $4 a day. "The new city courts could be next," Kani said. "City Hall East and Woodruff Park are on the top of the list." Atlanta could reap $5 million over the life of the deal, with the first $100,000 annually to be invested in information technology and most of the rest going to the general fund. Councilman H. Lamar Willis, himself a technology buff, has drafted a resolution in support of the program. Airport-bound FastPass is also bound for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is wrapping up an $11 million technology infrastructure upgrade. Once Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. (NYSE: BLS) finishes laying down a new airport-wide fiber-optic backbone, the local arm of Metuchen, N.J.-based Sita Corp. will add the wireless component and Biltmore will bring the airport into its network. Hartsfield-Jackson was to have been fully Wi-Fi enabled this fall, but a protest by one of the contractors competing with Sita delayed the project until March, said airport chief information officer Lance Lyttle. FastPass pricing at Hartsfield-Jackson has not yet been determined, but Lyttle said other airports are charging $3 to $9 a day. The entire FastPass system could still be held up by an entirely different sort of delay, however. With several large cities unveiling plans for citywide Wi-Fi networks over the past few months, big telecom companies like Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) have blasted their efforts as unfair competition and pushed for state-level legislation banning the practice. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that such legislation is legal. BellSouth, which is testing Wi-Fi service in Charlotte, N.C., has no immediate plans to oppose the FastPass system, according to spokeswoman LeAnn Boucher. Paul Arne, a partner with law firm Morris, Manning & Martin LLP, said that a challenge could still arise. Arne also said he thought Wi-Fi rates might have to drop significantly to encourage more than occasional use. In the meantime, Atlanta's 3rd Wave Inc., which recently changed its name to Ripple Inc., has amassed 55 hotspots metrowide since the start of 2004. Companies pay 3rd Wave to set up Wi-Fi at their place of business and let their customers log on for free. "I think it [for pay Wi-Fi] will quickly become usurped by those that want to offer it for free." said 3rd Wave founder Mike Landman. " It's becoming an expectation for customers, like having a bathroom." Source: MSNBS News Frost & Sullivan Technical Insights' latest study on Wireless Sensors and Wireless Sensor Networks will soon be available. 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