FRIDAY - JULY 30, 2004 - ISSUE NO. 123 | ||
Dear friends of Wireless Messaging and Paging, From the FierceWireless Newsletter July 27, 2004:
Do you remember ReadyCom and their "ReadyTalk" product? The following old news article may help your memory: From the August 23, 1996 issue of the Triangle Business Journal:
Well, they claimed to have a patent on downloading music to wireless devices. I wonder if trouble is brewing with Apple and Motorola or if something has already been worked out? I tried to talk ReadyCom into making a wireless MP3 player about six or seven years ago but they wouldn't do it. People on the move In our prayers
Please be sure to read the letter from my friend Vaughan Bowden in the READER'S COMMENTS section below. I have known Vaughan for over 20 years and highly recommend him as being qualified to provide engineering support for Paging systems. Now on to the 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.) Your help is needed. Help keep the newsletter going. Click on the PayPal button. |
WIRELESS NEWS | |||
7,500 CHILDREN PROTECTED BY SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY San Francisco Unified School District Upgrades to Satellite Security Systems for its Bus Safety Tracking and Monitoring Solution SAN DIEGO–July 23, 2004–Satellite Security Systems (S3), a global provider of asset security and logistics control, announced that the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has signed on to use its GlobalGuard™ and Virtual Perimeter™ technology to track and protect 220 school buses for the safe transport of 7,500 students everyday. GlobalGuard allows a team of SFUSD school administrators to view and monitor the exact location of every bus at once. Based on Global Positioning System (GPS) and ReFLEX™ (two-way satellite communication) technology, GlobalGuard provides up-to-the-minute vehicle location and can identify every time bus doors open and close and when the engines are turned on and off. Using Virtual Perimeter technology, the school district set up unique zones extending north to Napa, east to Concord and south to Gilroy. S3’s staff in San Diego monitors exact bus locations and alerts school district officials if a bus crosses set boundaries with data including date, time, precise location and the direction the bus is moving. “Our top priority is protecting the children who use our bus system everyday,” said Dennis Garden, director of transportation for SFUSD. “S3’s first-class security and service enables us to have the best possible accountability for our children. It’s very comforting to know that if there is an emergency such as an earthquake, we can instantly know where all of our buses are, which ones are carrying children and the best course of action.” “The system is particularly helpful in responding to parents’ questions and concerns,” added Garden. “I can tell them exactly where their child is and when they got on board.” SFUSD recently upgraded from an older GPS system to S3 for its capabilities, growth potential, the ability to retrieve data in multiple forms (whether students are on board or not, direction of movement and when doors open and close) and applying the data to administrative tasks such as fee analysis, scheduling and efficiency in route planning. About Satellite Security Systems Satellite Security System’s GlobalGuard technology secures, tracks and controls assets throughout the U.S., Mexico and Canada for clients in the military, government, law enforcement and commercial/industrial markets. GlobalGuard is the only technology that is able to remotely shut-down vehicle engines via satellite. With GlobalGuard, users can communicate with, monitor, track, analyze and control the movement of virtually any object, fixed or mobile. The integration of ReFLEX, Motorola's secure two-way messaging infrastructure, on-board CPU and an integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) make it possible for GlobalGuard users to send data back and forth from a central command unit or monitoring center while being continually alerted to new or dynamic changes. S3’s 24-hour, seven-day-a-week Monitoring and Support Center (MSC) is staffed with trained professionals to respond immediately to emergency situations. With the patent-pending Virtual Perimeter a vehicle or asset’s location is monitored within a specified zone and an alert containing date, time and precise location is generated when a boundary crossing occurs. For more information, log onto www.satsecurity.com or call (877) 437-4199. # # #
Source: Satellite Security Systems Wireless data services shape up at Verizon By Ben Charny Verizon Wireless announced that its cellular data services now generate revenue rivaling what some phone companies gain by selling DSL, as more U.S. consumers use their cell phones like PCs. According to financial data released Tuesday, Verizon Wireless subscribers generated $255 million in revenue during the last three months by sending or downloading record numbers of short text messages, photo messages and game or business applications. By comparison, Verizon Communications' DSL revenue accounted for $300 million, according to the company's second-quarter financial results. U.S. service providers believe that text messages, ring tones and more expensive features, like wireless broadband and video streaming, will combat the steep drops in revenue from voice calls, now a commodity because of fierce competition. But for years, it was a tough sell, mainly because wireless networks were too slow, and handsets were too unsophisticated to accommodate anything more than simple services like short-text messaging. But during the past two years, wireless carriers have sped up their networks at least fourfold, and color-screen cell phones have become the norm rather than the exception. That's helped increase the popularity of data services, according to analysts and service providers. "Wireless data is now a billion-dollar industry," Doreen Toben, chief financial officer at Verizon Communications, told financial analysts. Verizon Wireless is not the only carrier claiming that the wireless data mind-set is starting to change among U.S. cell phone customers. Cingular Wireless, the nation's second-largest cell phone service provider, recently said its wireless data revenue during the last three months more than doubled compared with a year ago. Source: ZDNet Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. mobile provider, said operating income rose to $1.6 billion from $981 million and total revenue rose to $6.85 billion from $5.48 billion a year earlier. It added 1.53 million customers in the quarter, about three times as many as its fastest growing rivals that have already reported this quarter. Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA is expected report its numbers in August. ``It was an impressive quarter,'' said Loop Capital Equity Research analyst William Cram, who said consumers are signing up with Verizon Wireless because they believe it has the best U.S. mobile network with fewest dropped calls. Verizon said data services, including text messaging and wireless Internet access, contributed 4.2 percent of its second-quarter service revenue of $6.04 billion. Data services represented 3.6 percent of revenue in the first quarter and 1.7 percent in the 2003 second quarter. The percentage of Verizon customers canceling their service in the second quarter dropped to 1.4 percent from 1.7 percent a year earlier. Average monthly revenue per subscriber, a key measure in the wireless industry, rose 3.2 percent from a year earlier, to $50.80. Source: msn.com Spain's Telefonica Moviles hikes first half profits 14 percent Wed July 28, 8:09 AM ET MADRID (AFP) - Spain's market leading mobile telecommunications operator Telefonica Moviles unveiled a 14-percent rise in first-half net profits largely in line with analyst forecasts. Net profit was 889 million euros 1.08 billion dollars), a 14.2-percent rise from 778.9 million euros for the corresponding period in 2003, to the lower end of analysts forecasts of between 871 and 938 million euros. Sales rose by 14.1 percent to 5.287 billion euros, again in line with expectations. Receipts from business within Spain advanced 12.5 percent and raced ahead 19.3 percent in Latin America which took an overall 26 percent share. EBITDA earnings for January to end June were up 6.8 percent to 2.27 billion euros while the group's net consolidated debt was down 27 percent to 4.856 billion dollars. At the end of June, Telefonica Moviles had 56 million customers for a 21 percent increase on the first half of 2003, of whom 35 million are in Latin America. Taking into account the acquisition in March of BellSouth total customers stand at 68 million. Vivo, the Brazilian operator controlled by Telefonica, "continues to be the leader in the market's growth process with 23.5 million clients", Telefonica Moviles said in a statement. The company's share price edged ahead 0.08 euros at 8.33 after the firm said it was poised to hit full-year revenue targets. Source: Yahoo! News |
READER'S COMMENTS | |||
Subject: The Jim Page Letter Brad, Very interesting letter from Jim Page. His comment that MobileComm’s bankruptcy is another story is factual. Although only a regional general manager with MobileComm at the time, the version of the bankruptcy as I understood it, is as follows: MobileComm was in financial trouble (but still growing as rapidly as the industry at that time) and had run up a 27 million dollar debt with Motorola, all for new pagers. Motorola was the only manufacturer they were using at the time. Due to the huge price MobileMedia paid Bell South (all borrowed cash) for MobileComm, money was tight but growth demanded a constant flow of new units. MobileComm (MobileMedia) offered to pay Motorola about half of the outstanding balance if they would resume shipments of the backlogged orders. After what seemed to be (to us in the field) a lengthy delay, Motorola announced they would not resume shipments until the entire balance was paid off. They were running at full speed and were selling all they could produce to the other carriers, especially PageNet, and I assume, saw no reason to go out on a limb with MobileComm with their shaky financial (debt) condition. Motorola was concerned that if they resumed shipments and MobileComm still went bankrupt, they would not only not collect the monies due but also may be forced to pay back the 13 million they had received. Since there were other creditors waiting, Motorola could have been viewed a preferred vendor receiving preferential treatment and may have had to refund the money to be split among all vendors in a bankruptcy proceeding. Therefore, they chose to call MobileComm’s bluff and MobileComm responded by fining Chapter 11 shortly thereafter (still owing the original 27 million). I am sure there are others much closer to the situation than I who are knowledgeable about what really happened but this was the version we were told at the time. There are not many of us who were there left in the industry. I request that my name not be published should you care to print this letter. Thanks once again for the newsletter. I like Jim Page's article very much, the Mobilecomm bankruptcy really did start things going down hill, but no one considers the independents still working along no matter what the BIG carriers are doing. You were right: your newsletter did contain quality information. It is good to hear that technology is being used for good and not just for profit. Brad, Jim Page's article is very good, however, one major point is missed. That is the paging industry, Glenayre, Motorola, and PageNet put all of their eggs into InFLEXion for about a 2 to 3 year period. This put the industry behind the 8 ball to begin with. Every engineer that I knew, knew that ReFLEX was the way to go and the top people never listened. Anyway, good read, Hi Brad, Again, keep up the good work, as I look forward to each every week. I think that the article by Jim Page was extremely interesting. We have used the RIM units to send information to our system for the last 6 years, as we were never happy with the ReFLEX technology. We have found that the Cingular units are far superior to the Motient units, as far as coverage. Additionally, as I told you earlier, Metrocall's ReFLEX system has many "holes" in the NY Metro area and they are not inclined to fix them, so they loose out, as Mobitex goes to great lengths to keep customers satisfied, raising antennas or repositioning them to assist in coverage, whereas Metrocall could care less. I just wish that RIM would improve the thumb-wheel on their units, as it is the weakest link and improve the back-light. If they did that, they would really have a home run. [also sent in a donation through PayPal to help support the newsletter] Hi Brad, Per our discussion here is a quick email outlining some of my background and experience in the paging business, as well as the service plans we provide. Easy Solutions can help in most any situation with your communications system. We have many years of experience and operate a lab with four Glenayre Paging systems in various configurations which allow us to provide design, support and repair services. We also have similar capabilities for Motorola C-NET and other systems. Personally I’ve been in the paging business for over 24 years (since graduating from college with an electronics degree in 1978). I have experience on both the manufacturing and service sides of business. I have worked with the very smallest to the very largest carriers all over the world. In manufacturing, I started with Commonwealth Communications, a manufacturing company in Ashland, Virginia and have worked for industry leaders BBL and Glenayre. I have worked in production, testing, engineering, project management and sales. My most recent role prior to offering this service was Vice President of Engineering for PageNet at the corporate level. PageNet was the largest paging carrier in the world at the time with over 10 million subscribers. While our primary breadwinner was traditional one way paging, we also built one of the first and largest two-way systems to date. While at PageNet, I established and managed a large-scale lab (TVC Technical Validation Center) that developed solutions for our business and the industry. I worked closely with industry leaders Motorola, Glenayre, Samsung, Sony, Ericsson, NEC, Phillips, etc in developing pagers and infrastructure for this market place. I was an active player in the industry technical committees when PCIA was the leader of the paging industry. I was chairman of the Y2K technical committee and the committee for two-way applications standards. While I have traveled throughout the world providing solutions, I am most proud of my ability to provide real time solutions to both savvy and non-technical people over the telephone. I am creative and communicate well at all levels in the business and technical side of the industry. I am meticulous and set very high quality standards, yet always look to provide value and consider the practical side of complex solutions. I’m very good with hardware and software solutions and can provide system level, as well as board and component level, troubleshooting. Some of the unique features of our service plans include time we spend with your system and or staff on a monthly basis, ensuring that your system is in good working order and has no signs of pending failure. This process will ensure a minimum amount of downtime for you and your customers. With hardware support we provide immediate replacement of your hard drives at no cost. This is one of the most expensive and vulnerable components of the system. This optional service will provide drives pre-configured to your system configuration. The drives will be built with extra redundancy to minimize downtime in any future failures. As a part of your service plan, we work with your paging equipment and staff to document the specific hardware and software setup and operating environment. This often uncovers important issues and details that can minimize or eliminate costly outages. After this exercise, we are familiar with your system and ready to provide timely and efficient services. Generally, we are able to provide suggestions that often pay significant dividends from an engineering, operational and marketing perspective. We are also very familiar and creative with the Telco, control, RF transmission, and device side of the business. We have developed creative C2000 system controls that allow the paging carrier to more efficiently diagnose and build RF systems. We can help you gain efficiencies and unlock additional revenues generating features of your system. Our claim to fame is making your system more reliable and profitable. Best regards, Vaughan Bowden 972 898-1119 Please click here to request more information on Service Plans.
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| Building on its long success story in 1-way paging, Advantra International has become the expert in designing and manufacturing the most advanced and lowest cost ReFLEX™ radio modems for 2-way data-communication. The company also focuses on offering total telemetry solutions. Advantra thanks its solid reputation to its world-renowned development team, state-of-the-art manufacturing, excellent customer service and its proven track-record.
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WANTED USED MOTOROLA PAGING EQUIPMENT AND INSTALLATION ACCESORIES
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Motorola Introduces Two New Pagers Ideal for Health Care, Hospitality, Manufacturing, and Utilities Markets Motorola's newest one-way pagers—the Advisor II pager and the LS355 pager—are ideal for users in demanding business environments who need a convenient and cost effective way to stay in touch. Both the Advisor II pager and the LS355 pager were developed for use in hospitals and medical facilities, manufacturing environments, utilities, hospitality applications, campus settings, and for businesses that own and operate their own paging systems.
Both the Advisor II pager and the LS355 pager are available in POCSAG, UHF or VHF models and ship with a one-year standard warranty. As part of the continued support of these pagers, Motorola offers a two-year Express Service Plus program. This feature provides hardware repair coverage for two years beyond the standard one-year warranty for a total of three years of pager repair coverage. Both pagers are available through Motorola Authorized Resellers. MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. © Motorola, Inc. 2003. | Complete Technical Services For The Ira Wiesenfeld, P.E.
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Advertise Here Your company's logo and product promotion can appear right here for 6 months. It only costs $500 for a full-size ad in 26 issues—that's $19.23 an issue. (6 month minimum run.) Details about the various advertising plans can be read here. | |||||||||||||||||||||
ZETRON 2100 PAGING TERMINAL 2000 subscriber with a 1000 subscriber expansion. Additional options that shipped with this terminal:
Thanks, | |||||||||||||||||||||
A fast and reliable alarming system is an indisputable prerequisite for emergency fire and rescue services to respond successfully and efficiently. State-of-the-art paging enables groups as well as individuals to be alerted. The Quattrino Voice and Memo two-tone pagers are suitable for everyone, even for those working in an emergency during severe weather conditions. Continual further development of previous popular models has resulted in a practical, reliable and user-friendly device, innovatively housed with ergonomic operating controls. Design elements include a very long standby function, and weather proofing to the European IP54 specifications. I am an authorized Manufacturer Representative for Swissphone. Please contact me directly for any additional information.
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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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WANTED 900 MHz PageThru™
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THE EXPERTS CORNER | |||||||||||||||||||||
An open forum for questions about paging systems and especially Unipage equipment, i.e., setups, commands, maintenance, etc. . . Your questions are welcome. sco@kci.net Shane Scofield |
Do you have any tips to share? Please send them along to me at jsimmons@rogerstwoway.com. John Simmons | ||||||||||||||||||||
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. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Thank you to all of Brad's readers who provided equipment and leads for my last want list. I continue to search out and recreate early wireless e-mail systems from the 80s and 90s and am looking to acquire the following:
If you have any of the above or a lead on same please contact us.
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![]() 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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Prism Message Gateway Systems Your Choice of Options
Popular Choice for Domestic and International
Logical Choice
Go ahead… be choosy… choose Prism Systems International
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Commtech Wireless introduces MAXPage, a desktop paging terminal packed with features. Alpha, Numeric, Tone, & Voice Serial Interface Telephone Interface Alarm Inputs Features*
*Some of the features listed are optional and are not supplied as standard For more information, simply fill out the feedback form or contact us on the details below.
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Download Mr. Mercer's resumé. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| ![]() 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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RTS Wireless ADVX System Programming Concepts, Inc. provides authorized RTS ADVX Wireless Gateway Support & Enhancements. Our RTS lab includes source code control, development tools, and test beds for all deployed RTS systems. Call now to sign-up for our first class support of your aging RTS system. More info ... PCI (www.programmingconcepts.com) has been in business for 24 years providing custom application programming for medium to large businesses. PCI's primary business segments include web enabled application development, financial industry systems, telephony (IVR, CTI, and Wireless), Secure Enterprise Instant Messaging System, Microsoft Customer Relationship Management (MS-CRM) Applications, and a wide variety of commercial applications. Contact Sales sales@programmingconcepts.com | ||||||||||||||||||||
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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MORE NEWS |
Aether Signs Agreement to Sell Transportation Division Company to Focus on Mortgage-Backed Securities, Seek Sale of Mobile Government Division OWINGS MILLS, MD—July 21, 2004—Aether Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: AETH) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Transportation Division to an affiliate of Platinum Equity for $25 million in cash. Completion of the sale is subject to customary closing conditions, including the approval of Aether's stockholders. The Company also announced that it had received initial indications of interest from several parties regarding a sale of its remaining wireless business, the Mobile Government division. Together with its financial advisor, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc. ("FBR"), the Company is actively pursuing discussions with these potential buyers. "With the agreement to sell our Transportation business and progress on a potential sale of our Mobile Government business, our plan is to expand the investment strategy that we outlined last month so that our Company's focus will become building and managing a leveraged portfolio of mortgage-backed securities," said David Oros, Aether's Chairman and CEO. "During our extensive strategic evaluation process, we carefully considered growing our existing operations through acquisitions and additional investment, but we concluded that such an approach would not allow us to enhance shareholder value within a reasonable time. We believe the new business strategy, while requiring a major transition in our Company, will allow us to become profitable much more quickly and realize substantial value (through tax savings) from our accumulated net loss carry-forwards." "Our hard-working employees have done an outstanding job building and improving the operations of our two existing businesses, as well as managing a time-consuming sales process, and we are grateful for their hard work," Mr. Oros added. "We believe that finding new owners for these businesses is in the best interests of our customers, suppliers, employees, and stockholders, given the strategic objectives we are looking to achieve as a company. We believe Platinum Equity will be a very good owner for our Transportation business. Of course, until both businesses have been sold, we will continue to ensure that the needs of our customers, suppliers, and employees are fully served." The Company said it will seek to hold a Special Meeting of Stockholders before the end of the third quarter to seek approval of the sale of the Transportation business, which will require the affirmative vote of a majority of the outstanding shares of Aether's common stock. The Company also reported that Mr. Oros has signed an agreement with Platinum to vote the shares of Aether stock that he owns or controls, which represent approximately 10% of Aether's outstanding shares, in favor of the transaction. The Company reported that consistent with its recent announcement to begin investing in mortgage-backed securities, it has committed approximately $75 million of its own funds to the new portfolio. "We have begun the process of assembling our portfolio of mortgage-backed securities, and we have initially kept our leverage ratio below the 5-8 times target that we discussed in June," Mr. Oros said. "For the balance of this year, while we work to complete the sale of our two wireless businesses, we plan to use the mortgage-backed securities strategy to offset as much of the cash burn from our current wireless operations as possible." The Company said it is seeking to complete both sales over the next several months. At that time, the Company said, it expects to provide detailed financial information about its new operating strategy. The Company also commented that upon completion of the sale of the Transportation business, as contemplated by the terms of its 6% convertible subordinated notes due 2005, it will provide appropriate notice and honor requests from noteholders to repurchase at par all or a portion of the outstanding $155 million of these notes. "We have more than sufficient cash on hand to repay the notes," said David Reymann, Aether's Chief Financial Officer. Source: Aether Press Release MetroPCS leads IPO list this week First telecom IPO in 3 years valued up to $528 mln By Steve Gelsi, CBS.MarketWatch.com NEW YORK (CBS.MW)—MetroPCS Communications leads a busy calendar of initial public offerings this week, as the wireless carrier seeks to become the first major telecom firm since 2001 to go public. After working through issues of debt, consolidation, and downsizing, the telecom sector is finally making tentative steps into the IPO market this year as its fortunes improve. Dallas-based MetroPCS plans to offer 24 million shares at $20 to $22 each to raise as much as $528 million. The deal is underwritten by Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch. The IPO could price as early as Wednesday night for trading on Thursday, according to Dealogic. A wireless carrier in San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta and Sacramento, Calif., MetroPCS reported 2003 net income of $20.6 million and revenue of $460 million, compared with net income of $139 million and revenue of $126 million in 2002 after selling assets. Formed in 1994 to buy PCS licenses, the company filed under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in 1998. The company emerged from bankruptcy proceedings in 1998. The company is the first major wireless carrier to file an IPO since AT&T Wireless went public in 2001. Shareholders in MetroPCS include Accel Partners, Auchincloss, Wadsworth & Co., BancAmerica Capital Investors, Battery Ventures, Berkeley Investments, Chestnut Venture Partners, Invesco, Clarity Partners and MetroPCS CEO Roger Linquist. Linquist, 66, a co-founder of MetroPCS, founded Metrocall, a U.S. paging company, and also worked at PacTel Personal Communications, which later became AirTouch. Waiting in the wings as well is FairPoint Communications of Charlotte, N.C., which plans to offer 42.8 million income deposit securities at $15 to $17 per share via underwriter CIBC World Markets. Aiming at the rural telephone market, FairPoint operates in 17 states with local, long distance and broadband product offerings. Source: CBSMarketWatch MetroPCS Shelves IPO July 29, 2004 The first major wireless initial public offering since AT&T Wireless went public was slated for this week, but MetroPCS has decided to hold off. The IPO, which was to consist of a 24-million share offering, was expected to rake in $504 million, with shares priced between $20 and $22 each. Instead of going through with the planned IPO, MetroPCS said it is postponing the offering. In a statement, company executives said they are "postponing such offering pending their review of certain accounting issues that came to their attention today." The accounting issues related to the company's previously disclosed financial results, but MetroPCS would not comment further on the status of the IPO. MetroPCS recently agreed to fork over $43.5 million to acquire two PCS spectrum licenses from NextWave Telecom. The licenses consisted of two Florida 10 MHz licenses covering Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and Sarasota-Bradenton. The company currently operates in the metropolitan areas of Miami, San Francisco, Atlanta and Sacramento. Source: Wireless Week |
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www.gtesinc.com GTES is the only Glenayre authorized software support provider to the paging industry. The GTES team consists of highly qualified and seasoned associates who were formerly a part of Glenayre's paging infrastructure support and engineering operations. We are poised and ready to "Partner" with you to ensure the viability of your network, reduce your long-term cost of ownership, and to provide future solutions for profitability. GTES will offer product sales, maintenance services, software development and product development to the wireless industry. GTES SUITE OF PRODUCTS GTES Partner Program Product Sales On-Site Services Software Development Product Training CALL US TODAY FOR YOUR SUPPORT NEEDS | Intelligent Paging & Mobile Data Hardware & Software Selective is a developer and manufacturer of highly innovative paging receiver/decoders and mobile data equipment. The PDT2000 Paging Data Terminal is 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 Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs) which may be interfaced to a variety of wireless networks including trunked and conventional radio, GPRS & CDMA cellular, Mobitex etc. 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. Specialised local area paging systems, paging interception and message reprocessing software, field force automation and mobile dispatch solutions. We export worldwide.
I am an authorized Manufacturer Representative for Selective Communications. Please contact me directly for any additional information.
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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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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. | EXECUTIVE AVAILABLE Industry executive looking for new position. Many people in this industry know Bob Spillar. Please read his impressive resumé here. |
WI-FI NEWS | |
New Wi-Fi cell phone unveiled by Motorola 12:47 PM CDT Wednesday Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), the world's second-largest maker of cellphones, has introduced a new phone that it says can switch calls between cell services and wireless Internet networks. The CN620 Wi-Fi cell phone, which uses technology supplied by Dallas-based Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), should be in stores by early 2005, making it among the first in a new class of phones that promise to disrupt the cell phone industry by reducing the number of minutes billed to customers' phones. Motorola employs more than 2,000 workers at production plants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and at its AllianceTexas distribution center for personal communications products, near Alliance Airport in Fort Worth. Motorola began working on the WiFi cellphone last year, when it struck a deal with TI to use chips it had designed for the purpose. Several companies have announced that they are at work on phones that will let business customers switch calls from their cellular carriers to their own company networks using short range wireless technology known as Wi-Fi. Once on the network, callers will be connected using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a fast growing technology that's already shaking up the wired telephone industry by bypassing most of the traditional network and its multitude of fees. Support from signal carriers has been weak, so far. The problem of how to ensure that customers are billed properly as their phones skip from one network to another has yet to be worked out. Motorola has not yet struck a deal with a wireless carrier to support the CN620. Because the phone uses the standard GSM cell phone technology -- the most popular in the world --- GSM carriers AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile USA are the most likely candidates in the United States to support the phone. Industry insiders say the technology is the wave of the future, however. Equipped with the right software, WiFi cell phones could someday use a home's WiFi access point to make phone calls using VoIP over the Internet, rather than a traditional wired telephone line. Source: Dallas Business Journal |
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Senator Hillary Clinton was attending a party, when she noticed California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. She walked over to him, and in a quiet voice said "If you were my husband I would poison your drink." Schwarzenegger smiled, leaned forward, and whispered in her ear, "And if you were my wife I would drink it." Keep smiling!
FLEX, ReFLEX, FLEXsuite, and InFLEXion, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motorola, Inc. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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