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wireless messaging newsletter

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FRIDAY - MARCH 6, 2009 - ISSUE NO. 350

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Paging and Wireless Messaging Home Page image Newsletter Archive image Carrier Directory image Recommended Products and Services
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Reference Papers Consulting Glossary of Terms Send an e-mail to Brad Dye

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Dear Friends of Wireless,

It is very disappointing to me when I receive telephone calls and e-mails about the FCC threats to fine various paging companies for CPNI non-compliance. In government double talk, a "threat" is a NAL or "Notice of Apparent Liability." I am hearing of "liabilities" ranging from $2,000 to $20,000! That's a lot of money for a small paging company that didn't know they were supposed to file some government form or maybe checked the wrong little box.

If you have received a NAL from the FCC Enforcement Bureau, you need to get professional advice from an attorney! This is a serious matter. The following FCC Public Notices may also be helpful. I just received them from the FCC this morning.

Legal advice on these issues is available to AAPC members as a standard benefit of membership.

I hope it is obvious that I never publish legal advise in this newsletter. Even the newsletters that I re-publish from the Law Offices of Blooston, Mordkofsky, Dickens, Duffy & Prendergast, include the disclaimer: "This newsletter is not intended to provide legal advice. Those interested in more information should contact the firm."

My own legal studies have been mostly limited to preparing to take the driver's license exam.

I do like to stay informed. For example, this week I am reproducing a letter from the FCC to the Director of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections, clarifying the law against unauthorized transmission of radio signals or "jamming." I am very interested in this subject since it has been a hot topic for the last couple of years. Lots of people are irritated by cell phone usage in public places. There have been many attempts at controlling cell phone usage in theaters, churches, restaurants, casinos, prisons, schools, and other places. I have received e-mails from other countries, trying to sell me jamming devices (or trying to get me to sell them here in the USA). I think any of us involved in radio communications should be aware that the current laws here prohibit jamming—even for what some may see as a "just cause." Please read the following letter from the FCC to get the correct interpretation of the law.

So I am not giving you legal advise, I am just giving you a copy of a letter, where you can get the information that you need.

The concluding remarks to the discussion on Paging vs. Smartphones — from the CEO of Onset Technology — are in the LETTERS TO THE EDITOR section.

I invite every vendor of wireless messaging equipment to read the open letter to vendors from Jim Nelson of Prism Paging. Jim has some important ideas. His letter is in the LETTERS TO THE EDITOR section. Don't miss it.

A long but fascinating article this week is about what makes a great manager. I have worked for some good ones and for some very bad ones. This article really impressed me, so I included it in its entirety.

“Great leaders are obsessed to build something exceptional, Jim Collins says. The American management guru talks about paranoia, turbulent times and his admiration for Beethoven and Steve Jobs.” The complete article follows below.

I have started a Facebook Group left arrow associated with this newsletter. It is an open group and you are welcome to join. Just click on the link above.

Now on to more news and views.

brad dye
Wireless Messaging Newsletter
  • Emergency Radio Communications
  • Wireless Messaging
  • Critical Messaging
  • Telemetry
  • Paging
  • VoIP
  • Wi-Fi
  • WiMAX
  • Location-Based Services
WIRELESS
wireless logo medium
MESSAGING

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This is my weekly newsletter about Wireless Messaging. You are receiving this 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 on the same subject. This is not a SPAM. If you have received this message in error, or you are not interested in these topics, please click here, then click on "send" and you will be promptly removed from the mailing list.

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iland internet sulutions This newsletter is brought to you by the generous support of our advertisers and the courtesy of iland Internet Solutions Corporation. For more information about the web-hosting services available from iland Internet Solutions Corporation, please click on their logo to the left.

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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 central 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 readers' 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 web site. I am very careful to protect the anonymity of those who request it.

Editorial Policy: The opinions expressed here are my own and DO NOT reflect the opinions or policies of any of the advertisers, supporters, contributors, the AAPC (American Association of Paging Carriers, or the EWA (Enterprise Wireless Alliance). As a general rule, I publish opposing opinions, even when I have to substitute "----" for some of the off-color words. This is a public forum for the topics covered, and all views are welcome (so far). Clips of news that I find on the Internet always include a link to the source and just because I report on a given topic or opinion doesn't mean that I agree with it.

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Anyone wanting to help support The Wireless Messaging Newsletter can do so by clicking on the PayPal Donate button above.

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A CONSULTING ALLIANCE
Brad Dye, Ron Mercer, and Vic Jackson are friends and colleagues who work both together and independently, on wireline and wireless communications projects. Click here  for a summary of their qualifications and experience. They collaborate on consulting assignments, and share the work according to their individual expertise and their schedules.

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pagerman

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The local newspaper here in Springfield, Illinois costs 75¢ a copy and it NEVER mentions paging. If you receive some benefit from this publication maybe you would like to help support it financially? A donation of $25.00 would represent approximately 50¢ a copy for one year. If you are so inclined, please click on the PayPal Donate button above. No trees were chopped down to produce this electronic newsletter.

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PAGING CARRIERS

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aapc

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WIRELESS MESSAGING NEWS

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Farewell RCRWireless

March 4, 2009 — 8:51am ET
By Sue Marek
FierceWireless

sue marek
Sue Marek

It's a somber day for members of the wireless industry press. Long-time news source RCRWireless shuttered its doors yesterday, laying off its 20-person staff and ceasing both its print publication and its online Web updates. A victim of the precarious economics of print publishing and the global financial meltdown, RCR will be missed by all of us.

Although FierceWireless often competed with RCR for news stories and scoops, the RCR staffers were our friends and respected colleagues. We shared laughs in the press room at trade shows and commiserated at industry parties about our grueling deadline schedules. But most of all, we shared a common bond with the RCR reporters. We were all committed to the same goal—reporting and delivering to our readers all the key industry news in a timely and accurate manner.

In these tough times, we know that the wireless industry depends upon the remaining industry publications for its daily news and analysis. Rest assured that FierceWireless will continue to deliver on that promise every day.

—Sue

Source: FierceWireless

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FEATURED ADVERTISERS SUPPORTING THE NEWSLETTER

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Advertiser Index

AAPC—American Association of Paging Carriers NOTIFYall
Canamex Communications Paging & Wireless Network Planners LLC
CRS—Critical Response Systems Preferred Wireless
CVC Paging Prism Paging
Daviscomms USA Raven Systems
Easy Solutions Ron Mercer
GTES—Global Technical Engineering Solutions Sun Telecom
Hark Systems Swissphone
HMCE, Inc. UCOM Paging
InfoRad, Inc.    Unication USA
Leavitt Communications 
Minilec Service, Inc. United Communications Corp.
Northeast Paging WiPath Communications

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LEAVITT COMMUNICATIONS

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leavitt

SEE US AT IWCE 2009 booth 1368

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UNICATION USA

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unication logo One pager can now replace two.

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Elegant/Legend Dual Frequency Pagers.

unication dual freq pager

unication dual frequency pager Unication Co., Ltd. a leader in wireless paging technologies, introduces a completely new Alpha Elegant/Dual and Alpha Legend/Dual.

A dual-frequency alphanumeric pager that will operate on your on-site system—giving you the advantage of very fast response—and that will automatically switch to the Carrier system providing you wide-area coverage.

Unication USA 817-303-9320 sales@unication.com

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Canamex Communications

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QUIKPAGER 2400

call to order nowquikpager
  • HOSPITALS AND CLINICS
  • EMERGENCY DISPATCH
  • FIRE DEPARTMENTS

The same reliable QUIKPAGER that you have used for years!

Stand-alone remote alphanumeric entry device with internal modem to dial-up and connect to paging terminals to deliver messages in TAP protocol.

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QUIKPAGER Wireless
Combine your commercial paging service with onsite paging using the same QUIKPAGER keyboard!

canamex

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PageRouter Networks
Give your customers the power of PageRouter to unify messaging and increase productivity.
In operation at Hospitals and Factories since 2004.

canamex

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canamex logo

Canamex Communications Corporation
Providing technology to the paging industry since 1989

800-387-4237
sales@canamexcom.com
www.canamexcom.com

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Canamex Communications

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pagerman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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FleetTALK Management Services

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fleet talk

Wireless Industry Management Specialist

  • Nationwide Field Service Capability
  • 24/7 Customer Service
  • Collections
  • Network Operations Center Functions
  • Two Way Radio Network Provider
  • Spectrum Sales & Acquisition

Contact:

Tom Williams 973-625-7500 x102
e-mail: twilliams@fleettalkusa.com

FleetTALK Management Services
101 Roundhill Drive
Rockaway, NJ 07866
973-625-7500

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FleetTALK Management Services

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RAVEN SYSTEMS

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NEW!
BREAKTHROUGH PRODUCTS FOR
MASS NOTIFICATION
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The new RAVENAlert answers the need for a fast, intelligent, and dependable indoor alerting device. Features include:

  • High volume audible alert.
  • Large backlit screen.
  • Clear voice via new text to speech technology.
  • Compact Size. 5.5 X 5 inches
  • Easy wall mount or sits upright on any flat surface
  • Battery or line powered
  • Vast grouping capability
  • FLEX or POCSAG in all frequency bands
  • UL Listed
siren

COMPLETE ALERTING FOR:

Municipalities
Universities
Public Schools
Industrial Facilities
Military Bases
Fire Departments

The new RAVEN-500 series of high decibel alerting products allows for dynamic alerting and voice messaging for indoor and outdoor areas. Perfect for athletic fields, indoor gymnasiums, large retail stores and outdoor common areas.

RAVEN PRODUCTS AND SOFTWARE + YOUR AIRTIME = NEW OPPORTUNITY

raven logo

Phone: 623-582-4592
E-mail: manduri@ravensys.com
WEB: www.ravensys.com

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Motorola changes tune on CFO dismissal

by Dawn Kawamoto
CNET News

March 5, 2009 7:58 AM PST

Struggling handset maker Motorola now characterizes the dismissal of its chief financial officer as "for cause," marking a shift from its initial explanation last month, according to a report Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.

In the company's quarterly financial report early last month, Motorola announced that CFO Paul Liska would be immediately replaced and noted its decision stemmed from postponing the spin-off of its cell phone unit, according to the Journal.

Liska, who was hired by Motorola last year, had previously worked at private equity firms, where he was tasked with running troubled companies and turning them around.

In announcing Liska's departure on February 3, Motorola CEO Greg Brown touted Liska's efforts:

We appreciate the contributions Paul made toward the Company's planned separation and in managing our cost-reduction activities.

But two weeks later, on February 19, Motorola made a decision to fire Liska "for cause," according to the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filing earlier this week.

In this week's SEC filing, Motorola noted it paid Liska a $400,000 sign-on bonus in two installments during 2008, but because his termination was "for cause," the company was seeking a repayment for the full amount.

A day after Motorola made its decision to fire Liska "for cause," the former executive filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in Illinois, according to a source cited in the Journal.

Motorola declined to comment, and Liska did not return phone calls to his home.

However, in a statement to the Journal, Liska said he was fired on January 29, following a board meeting, and that for the next three weeks he and his attorney were told by the company the firing was "without cause."

Motorola's fourth-quarter results showed a revenue decline of 26 percent year over year and a $3.6 billion net loss.

Source: CNET News

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gtes logo gtes logo
GLOBAL TECHNICAL ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS

YOUR SERVICES PARTNER FOR GLENAYRE™ PAGING EQUIPMENT
GL3000 Paging Terminals - C2000 Transmitter Controllers
GL3200 Internet Gateways - Transmitter Equipment

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GTES is the only Glenayre authorized software support provider in the paging industry. With years of combined experience in Glenayre hardware and software support, GTES offers the industry the most professional support and engineering staff available.

EQUIPMENT SUPPORT PROGRAMS
GTES Partner Maintenance Program
Glenayre Product Sales
Software Licenses, Upgrades and Feature License Codes
New & Used Spare Parts and Repairs
Customer Phone Support and On-Site Services
Product Training

CALL US TODAY FOR YOUR SUPPORT NEEDS

   Sales Support - Debbie Schlipman
  E-mail: Debbie.schlipman@gtesinc.com
  Phone: +1-251-445-6826
  
   Customer Service
  E-mail: cs@gtesinc.com
  Phone: +1-800-663-5996 or +1-972-801-0590
  
   Website - www.gtesinc.com
 

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sun telecom logo

THE LOGICAL CHOICE

sun titan 3

Titan3

The Titan3 POCSAG & FLEX

Sun Telecom's Best selling Alpha-Numeric pager. The Titan3 offers enhanced features and advancements that keep it on the leading edge. This is the pager your customers are looking for.

www.suntelecom.com

CONTACT:
Michelle Choi
Director of Sales & Operations
Sun Telecom International, Inc.
Telephone: 678-541-0441
Fax: 678-541-0442
michelle.choi@suntelecom.com

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flex logo FLEX is a registered trademark of Motorola Inc.

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fcc logo

Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C. 20554

February 18, 2009

 
Mr. Devon Brown
Director
District of Columbia Department of Corrections
1923 Vermont Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
DA 09-354

Dear Mr. Brown:

spacerThe Commission has received your letter, dated February 2, 2009, requesting authorization for the District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DCDOC) to host a demonstration of jamming equipment designed to block wireless telephone calls by prisoners.1 For the reasons set forth below, we must deny the request.

spacerThe DCDOC letter states that the brief demonstration will take place on February 20, 2009 at the D.C. Jail.2 The DCDOC letter indicates that “the demonstration will entail directional jamming that will not affect authorized wireless communications transmitted outside the established test area of the D.C. Jail.”3 In further support of the request, DCDOC explains that “wireless telephones present a serious threat to public safety and the security of correctional environments.”

spacerWe are cognizant of the substantial threat to public safety posed by the use of contraband mobile phones by inmates in prisons and other correctional facilities. We also note that members of Congress have expressed an interest in modifying the Communications Act to authorize the Commission to consider petitions for waiver to permit the installation of devices “for the sole purpose of preventing, jamming, or interfering with wireless communications within the geographic boundaries of a specified prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility.”4 However, based on the information provided in the DCDOC letter and consistent with past Commission staff interpretations, we find that the proposed jamming would violate both the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, (“Communications Act”) as well as the Commission’s rules. Specifically, Section 333 of the Communications Act prohibits willful or malicious interference with “any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under the Act or operated by the United States Government.”5 In addition, Section 302 of the Communications Act, and Section 2.803(a) of the Commission’s rules prohibit the manufacture, importation, marketing, sale or operation of devices deliberately designed to jam or disrupt wireless communications.6

spacerAs noted above, our denial of the request is consistent with past actions by the Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau; Office of Engineering and Technology; and Enforcement Bureau addressing the permissibility of the sale or use of cell phone jamming equipment. For example, on June 25, 2005, these Bureaus jointly released a Public Notice to make clear that the sale or use of transmitters designed to prevent, jam or interfere with cell phone communications was unlawful as a violation of both the Communications Act and our rules.7 In 1999, the Office of Engineering and Technology and the Compliance and Information Bureau issued a similar Public Notice stating that: “[t]here are no provisions in the FCC’s rules that permit the operation of any device intended to interfere with cellular communications.”8 Further, the Enforcement Bureau recently issued a citation to a company for marketing jamming equipment and stated that “there is no … exemption allowing the marketing or sale of unauthorized radio frequency devices to state and local law enforcement agencies.”9 Because we find the proposed jamming at the D.C. Jail would be inconsistent with both the Communications Act and the Commission’s rules, we deny your request.10

spacerFor the foregoing reasons, the DCDOC request is denied. This action is taken under delegated authority pursuant to Sections 0.131 and 0.331 of the Commission’s Rules, 47 C.F.R. §§ 0.131, 0.331.

 

Sincerely,

 

James D. Schlichting
Acting Chief
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau

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9 Letter from Devon Brown, Director, District of Columbia Department of Corrections, to Michael Copps, Acting Chairman, Federal Communications Commission at 1 (February 2, 2009) (“DCDOC Letter”).

2 Id.

3 Id.

4 Safe Prisons Communications Act, S. 251, 111th Cong. § 2(b)(1)(a) (2009); see also, Safe Prisons Communications Act, H.R. 560, 111th Cong. § 2(b)(1)(a) (2009).

5 47 U.S.C. § 333.

6 See 47 U.S.C. § 302a(b); 47 C.F.R. §2.803(a).

7 See Sale or Use of Transmitters Designed to Prevent, Jam or Interfere with Cell Phone Communications is Prohibited in the United States, Public Notice, 20 FCC Rcd 11134 (EB, OET, WTB 2005). We note that on January 2, 2009, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau issued a grant of Special Temporary Authority to DCDOC to test jamming equipment that did not fully consider all relevant legal issues discussed herein and therefore has no precedential value. See Letter dated January 2, 2009 from Joel D. Taubenblatt, Deputy Chief, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, to Mr. Devon Brown, Director, District of Columbia Department of Corrections, DA 09-3.

8 See Office of Engineering and Technology and Compliance and Information Bureau Warn Against the Manufacture, Importation, Marketing or Operation of Transmitters Designed to Prevent or Otherwise Interfere with Cellular Radio Communications, Public Notice, 15 FCC Rcd 6997 (OET, CIB 1999).

9 See Letter dated May 27, 2008 from Kathryn Berthot, Chief, Spectrum Enforcement Division, Enforcement Bureau, to Monty Henry, DPL Surveillance Equipment, File No. EB-08-SE-203, DA 08-1202 at 3.

10 Aside from the legal grounds described above requiring denial of the request, we note that the DCDOC letter does not include the technical information that must be submitted with an STA request. See 47 C.F.R. § 1.931. For example, the letter does not include the frequency band(s) on which the proposed jamming would take place; the power levels to be used; or the antenna location, gain, or orientation.

Source: FCC web site

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SWISSPHONE

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swissphone

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PRISM PAGING

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prism paging

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PageOne gives a sneak preview into new paging developments at BAPCO

22-23 April, Stand 427, Business Design Centre, London

London, 5th March, 2009 - PageOne, the UK's leading mobile messaging company to the public sector and enterprise today announces that it will be giving attendees to BAPCO's annual conference and exhibition a sneak preview into an exciting new development in paging currently taking place within the company - the news that 2-way paging will be available to customers in the UK for the first time within the next few months.

Once launched, this unique new service to the UK mobile messaging market will offer paging customers an enhanced user experience. As well as providing the two-way response element that paging has never had, administrators will also be able to detect a pager's location within different zones, an extremely useful security feature for lone workers out in the field.

In addition to being able to discuss this new development with PageOne messaging consultants on the stand and register interest, attendees will also be able to see the flare suite of Business Continuity products including a new additional service to the suite which involves location based mapping, and pulse. pulse is a priority paging channel specifically dedicated to blue-light organisations. This new paging channel launched to the sector only last year, offers automatic and sophisticated priority routing and dynamic bandwidth controls to ensure emergency messaging traffic is maintained without disruption, during periods of exceptional load and crisis. It is freely available to PageOne's paging customers who operate blue-light emergency applications.

Clair Cawley, Marketing Director at PageOne, said, "Our commitment to innovation means that our customers are always at the heart of everything that we do. We are constantly striving to enhance our services, and BAPCO presents us with a great platform to showcase our public sector products and to present any new developments."

Source: News on Search by Headlines

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CRITICAL RESPONSE SYSTEMS

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Critical Response Systems

Over 70% of first responders are volunteers
Without an alert, interoperability means nothing.

Get the Alert.

M1501 Acknowledgent Pager

With the M1501 Acknowledgement Pager and a SPARKGAP wireless data system, you know when your volunteers have been alerted, when they’ve read the message, and how they’re going to respond – all in the first minutes of an event. Only the M1501 delivers what agencies need – reliable, rugged, secure alerting with acknowledgement.

Learn More

FEATURES
  • 5-Second Message Delivery
  • Acknowledged Personal Messaging
  • Acknowledged Group Messaging
  • 16 Group Addresses
  • 128-Bit Encryption
  • Network-Synchronized Time Display
  • Simple User Interface
  • Programming/Charging Base
  • Secondary Features Supporting Public Safety and Healthcare

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DAVISCOMMS USA

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daviscomms usa

www.daviscommsusa.com

Contract Manufacturing Services
We offer full product support (ODM/OEM) including:

  • Engineering Design & Support
  • Research and Testing
  • Proto-typing
  • Field services
  • Distribution

Services vary from Board Level to complete “Turn Key”
Production Services based on outsourcing needs
.

product examples

Daviscomms – Product Examples

Manufacturer of the FLEX & POCSAG 1-Way Bravo Pager Line and Telemetry Modules

For information call 480-515-2344 or visit our website
www.daviscommsusa.com
E-mail addresses are posted there!

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Investor Relations - Press Release

USA Mobility Reports Fourth Quarter and 2008 Operating Results; Announces Regular Quarterly and Special Cash Distribution, Plus Supplement to Share Repurchase Program

Cash Flow Margins Improve; Operating Expenses Decline; $39.1 Million in Capital Returned to Stockholders in 2008

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Mar. 3, 2009— USA Mobility, Inc. (Nasdaq: USMO), a leading provider of wireless messaging and communications services, today announced operating results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2008.

In addition, the Company’s Board of Directors declared a regular quarterly cash distribution of $0.25 per share and special cash distribution of $1.00 per share. The cash distributions will be paid on March 31, 2009 to stockholders of record on March 17, 2009. The Company expects the entire amount of the cash distributions to be paid as a return of capital.

Also, the Board approved a supplement to the Company’s previously announced plan to buy back up to $50 million of USA Mobility common stock over a 12-month period. Under the plan, which commenced last August, the Company had repurchased approximately 4.4 million shares for $38.1 million as of December 31, 2008. The supplement resets the balance in the share repurchase program to $25 million and extends the purchase period through December 31, 2009.

Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $84.3 million, compared to $88.4 million in the third quarter of 2008 and $100.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and accretion) for the fourth quarter of 2008 was $29.8 million, or 35.4 percent of revenue, the highest quarterly EBITDA margin in more than four years. Fourth quarter operating income was $18.1 million, compared to $13.6 million in the year-earlier quarter. For the full-year 2008, total revenue was $359.4 million, compared to $424.6 million in 2007, while EBITDA was $115.9 million, or 32.2 percent of revenue, compared to $124.5 million, or 29.3 percent of revenue, in 2007.

The Company reported net income of $8.0 million, or $0.32 per fully diluted share, for the fourth quarter, compared to a net loss of $46.7 million, or $1.70 per fully diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2007. The fourth quarter 2007 loss resulted primarily from $54.3 million in income tax expense that reduced the carrying value of deferred income tax assets. Absent the incremental income tax expense, net income for the fourth quarter of 2007 would have been $7.6 million, or $0.28 per fully diluted share.

For 2008, the Company reported a net loss of $157.1 million, or $5.83 per fully diluted share, compared to a net loss of $5.2 million, or $0.19 per fully diluted share, in 2007. The loss resulted from the goodwill impairment in the first quarter of 2008 for which the Company incurred a $188.2 million non-cash expense to write-off its entire goodwill balance. Absent the goodwill write-down, net income for 2008 would have been $31.1 million, or $1.15 per fully diluted share.

Key results and highlights for the fourth quarter and 2008 included:

  • Net unit losses were 187,000 in the fourth quarter, compared to 174,000 in the third quarter, while the quarterly rate of unit erosion increased to 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter from 5.5 percent in the third quarter. The annual rate of unit erosion was 19.2 percent in 2008, compared to 15.1 percent in 2007. Net unit losses were 670,000 in 2008 versus 620,000 in 2007. Total units in service at year-end 2008 were 2,815,000, compared to 3,485,000 a year earlier.
  • The quarterly rate of revenue erosion increased to 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter from 4.0 percent in the third quarter. The year-over-year rate of revenue decline increased to 15.3 percent in 2008 from 14.7 percent in 2007.
  • Operating expenses (excluding depreciation, amortization, accretion and goodwill impairment) were $54.4 million for the fourth quarter, a reduction of $21.3 million, or 28.1 percent, from $75.7 million in the year-earlier quarter. For the full year, operating expenses (excluding depreciation, amortization, accretion and goodwill impairment) declined by $56.6 million, or 18.8 percent, to $243.5 million from $300.1 million in 2007. Expense reduction during the year was largely the result of network rationalization, staff reductions and company-wide cost efficiencies.
  • Average revenue per unit (ARPU) was $8.71 for the fourth quarter, an increase from $8.62 in the fourth quarter of 2007. For the year, ARPU totaled $8.64, compared to $8.55 in 2007. ARPU levels increased modestly during 2008 due principally to structural pricing changes and a reduction in billing and service credits.
  • EBITDA as a percentage of revenue, or EBITDA margin, was 35.4 percent in the fourth quarter, compared to 24.5 percent the year-earlier quarter.
  • Capital expenses totaled $18.3 million in 2008, equal to the prior year.
  • The Company generated $87.9 million in cash during the year from operating and investing activities and had a cash balance of $75.0 million at December 31, 2008.
  • During the year the Company distributed to stockholders total cash distributions of $1.40 per share of common stock, representing a return of capital to stockholders of $39.1 million.
  • The number of full-time equivalent employees declined from 1,003 at the beginning of the year to 811 at year-end as a result of ongoing consolidation and expense control initiatives.

“Despite a difficult economy and ongoing industry challenges, we again made excellent progress in the fourth quarter and throughout 2008,” said Vincent D. Kelly, president and chief executive officer. “We continued to operate the Company profitably while meeting our primary performance targets, reducing operating costs, increasing margins and revenue per unit, upgrading organizational efficiencies and refocusing selling and marketing around our core market segments. At the same time, we met our goal of generating substantial cash flow that enabled us to continue to return capital to stockholders.”

Kelly noted, however, that subscriber and revenue trends deteriorated during the fourth quarter due largely to a weakening economy. “We experienced an acceleration of subscriber and revenue erosion over the second half of 2008 after years of steady improvement as gross unit placements slowed relative to past trends. However,” he added, “we were able to offset a portion of the revenue loss through solid increases in paging ARPU which reached its highest level in several years.”

Kelly said the Company continued to concentrate its sales and marketing efforts during the year around its core market segments of Healthcare, Government and Large Enterprise, which together represented 81 percent of the Company’s direct subscriber base at year-end and 75 percent of direct paging revenue in the fourth quarter. “Healthcare continues to be our best performing market segment, contributing 55 percent of direct gross placements during the quarter, while net churn among Healthcare accounts remained the lowest among our subscriber segments.”

Kelly said USA Mobility paid cash distributions to stockholders totaling $1.40 per share during 2008, representing a total of $39.1 million, “consistent with our stated capital allocation strategy, and we repurchased $38.1 million of our common stock under our stock buy-back program through year end. In addition,” Kelly noted, “we are delighted to be able to pay a special cash distribution of $1.00 per share to our stockholders in the first quarter of 2009. We will operate the business throughout the year consistent with our cash flow strategy and, after the end of the year, the Board and management will again evaluate our cash position and outlook and consider the case for another special distribution and/or more share repurchases.” However, he cautioned, “the rate at which the Company will continue to return capital to stockholders, either in the form of cash distributions or share repurchases, will depend largely on future operating results as well as various other business and economic factors.”

Kelly said the Company was pleased with the resolution of several key regulatory issues in the fourth quarter, including the termination of a pending rule by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to require back-up power for large commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) providers, which could have resulted in higher network costs for USA Mobility and other telecom operators. The FCC voluntarily withdrew its rule, which had been challenged in court in early 2008 by USA Mobility and various other wireless providers, after the Federal Office of Management and Budget last November rejected the FCC’s request to approve related information-collection requirements. The FCC also declined to take action on a proposal to change the rules for the collection of contributions to the Universal Service Fund which, if approved, could have resulted in substantially higher fees assessed to the Company and its customers.

Thomas L. Schilling, chief operating officer and chief financial officer, said: “Overall, we were pleased with our 2008 results, which equaled or exceeded our expectations. However, the current economic conditions are clearly impacting our subscriber base and will require even more urgency in our cost reduction efforts.”

Schilling added: “Fourth quarter operating expenses (excluding depreciation, amortization, accretion and goodwill impairment) decreased 28.1 percent from the year-earlier quarter and, as a percentage of revenue, were at their lowest level in more than four years. The significant drop in operating costs was largely the result of incremental savings from our network rationalization program, including lower site rents, combined with the successful implementation of a company-wide internal reorganization last summer.” Schilling also noted that “total paging ARPU increased to $8.71 in the fourth quarter from $8.62 in the fourth quarter of 2007, largely the result of structural price changes and a reduction in the rate of billing and service credits.”

Commenting on the Company’s financial guidance, Schilling said: “We are pleased the financial guidance we provided for 2008 was either within or better than our target estimates. “Total revenue of $359.4 million was within our guidance range of $355 million to $360 million; operating expenses (excluding depreciation, amortization, accretion and goodwill impairment) of $243.5 million were better than the guidance range of $245 million to $250 million; and capital expenses of $18.3 million were within the guidance range of $18 million to $20 million. With respect to guidance for 2009, the Company expects revenue to be in a range from $285 million to $295 million, operating expenses (excluding depreciation, amortization and accretion) to be in a range from $198 million to $203 million, and capital expenses in a range from $19 million to $21 million.”

USA Mobility plans to host a conference call for investors on its fourth quarter and 2008 results at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, March 4, 2009. The dial-in number for the call is 800-817-4887 (toll-free) or 913-905-1087 (toll). The pass code for the call is 5160424. A replay of the call will be available from 3:00 p.m. ET on March 4 until 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18. The replay number is 888-203-1112 (toll-free) or 719-457-0820 (toll). The pass code for the replay is 5160424.

About USA Mobility

USA Mobility, Inc., headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, is a comprehensive provider of reliable and affordable wireless communications solutions to the healthcare, government, large enterprise and emergency response sectors. As a single-source provider, USA Mobility's focus is on the business-to-business marketplace and supplying wireless connectivity solutions to a majority of the Fortune 1000 companies. The Company operates the largest one-way paging and advanced two-way paging networks in the United States. In addition, USA Mobility offers mobile voice and data services through Sprint Nextel, including BlackBerry® smartphones and GPS location applications. The Company's product offerings include customized wireless connectivity systems for the healthcare, government and other campus environments. USA Mobility also offers M2M (machine-to-machine) telemetry solutions for numerous applications that include asset tracking, utility meter reading and other remote device monitoring applications on a national scale. For further information visit www.usamobility.com.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act: Statements contained herein or in prior press releases which are not historical fact, such as statements regarding USA Mobility’s future operating and financial performance, are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause USA Mobility’s actual results to be materially different from the future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expectations include, but are not limited to, declining demand for paging products and services, the ability to continue to reduce operating expenses, future capital needs, competitive pricing pressures, competition from both traditional paging services and other wireless communications services, government regulation, reliance upon third-party providers for certain equipment and services, as well as other risks described from time to time in periodic reports and registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although USA Mobility believes the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be attained. USA Mobility disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Source: USA Mobility (Financial tables are included in the original.)

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UNITED COMMUNICATIONS

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“Steve Jobs is an Industrial Beethoven”

HOSSLI.COM, 2. MARCH 2009

Great leaders are obsessed to build something exceptional, Jim Collins says. The American management guru talks about paranoia, turbulent times and his admiration for Beethoven and Steve Jobs.

By Peter Hossli

jim collinsMr. Collins, Some of the best-managed companies in the United States recently made some of the worst decisions in business history. What went wrong?
Jim Collins: I don’t know. If I had the answer to that, I’d be a lot smarter than anyone else. I don’t think anybody knows the answer to that question.

But how will the current crisis change the way you’re going to think about business?
Collins: I don’t know. The specifics of this particular crisis are so early, and so rapidly unfolding, that to say how it will change the way people think or behave, would be like asking somebody to predict in August 1914, what impact that was going to have on the geopolitical world.

You’re one of the eminent thinkers of leadership in business. The current crisis is often described as a failure of leadership. True?
Collins: If an entire economy is in trouble, then everybody is facing a very similar set of circumstances, and a similar amount of turbulent events. It would be hard to imagine that across the board, every single leader failed. There is something very large, and very systemic here, that is taking place. We truly don’t understand it.

That’s a bit disappointing. You study management, and you came up with certain theories. You must be able to adopt them to current events.
Collins: I’m a historian. I look at long sweeps of history, in a very controlled, analytic way, comparing matched pairs of enterprises that were facing similar circumstances. What I don’t have any perception of, is our current events.

But everybody wants to know what’s happening now – and what will happen tomorrow.
Collins: When I was 18 years old, my Philosophy professor called me into his office, and he sat me down. He said, “Mr. Collins, a word to the wise. One ought not to speak about what one does not know.” And I’ve always adhered to that. I don’t speak of what I don’t know. There are lots of people who are willing to give you an opinion. I’m not one of them.

These are turbulent times. At the same time the United States and the world has a new leader in Barack Obama. Does he bring the qualities to the tables that are necessary to get over the crisis?
Collins: You’re asking me something I can’t possibly know.

Why not? You study leaders.
Collins: Do you know?

One can look at Obama’s speeches, his decisions, and his plan, how he handled his campaign.
Collins: I’m a historian, and I don’t look at current events. It’s very, very hard to judge a sitting leader. You couldn't possibly judge a leader after three weeks. You can judge a leader after maybe four years, but most likely eight years. I hope that we have great leadership. We need great leadership. Everybody in the United States, and everyone in the world, is certainly rooting for his success.

So what makes a great leader?
Collins: They are people who are not in it for themselves. They’re in it to build a great company. They’re in it to create something that is larger than them. They are in it to have a real impact on the world. And they are utterly relentless in making the most painful decisions required in order to make good on that ambition. The signature that jumped out in our research is humility. The thing that is quite striking about these people is how many of the greatest ones are people you’ve never heard of. They’re not celebrities. They’re not necessarily the most charismatic group.

Our society celebrates the charismatic CEOs. How do you explain the contradiction?
Collins: They’re more interesting to write about. They’re more fun to listen to. They draw more attention to themselves. There’s certainly a cultural interest in interesting people. All of us are interested in interesting people. But people confuse the idea of charisma with leadership.

But there are charismatic leaders who are also great leaders, and who are also highly successful.
Collins: Yes, that’s true. You do not need charisma to be a great leader of a great company. But most of the great leaders of great companies we’ve studied didn’t have charisma.

Most CEOs aim to be on the cover of Fortune and Business Week. What makes somebody understand that selfless ambition leads to success?
Collins: In a number of cases, they had some sort of event in their life that had a humbling effect upon them. It ignited in them a sense of ambition that was bigger than them. Look at Darwin Smith, the CEO of Kimberly-Clark. He thought he was going to die of cancer. They gave him a year to live. He beat the cancer and went on to really be one of the great chief executives. When you face a disease that is going to very likely kill you, you come out of that perhaps with a different view about your own mortality. That kind of an experience, I believe, had a very big impact on some of our leaders. And Darwin was somebody who basically said, “Well, I don’t know how many years I’m going to get. I don’t know how much time I’m going to be here. I’d like to be useful. I’d like to do something that actually is the very best that I can put my own stamp on.”

This kind of humbleness seems to be an exception.
Collins: No, it’s actually what they all had. If you want to define what a great corporate leader is I can think of no better definition of one than one that took an average company and made it great. If you took an already good company – well, you don’t really know if you had much to do with it. It was already great. If you took an average company and it never became great, then you weren't a great leader. The ones who took something mediocre, and then made it great those have to be some of the greatest leaders in all of business history. And they all had this signature. I’m not saying that every single successful CEO has this humility defined as an ambition bigger than them. I would simply say that the ones that made good companies go from great all had it.

They most have profited doing it. What is the relationship between compensation and performance?
Collins: None. It’s a scatter plot. Bonuses don’t lead to higher performance. They just lead to higher-paid executives.

Companies always argue they need bonuses to keep talent. What does money mean in business?
Collins: There’s basically no relationship between how much executives are paid, how they’re paid, and how they perform. The hypothesis is that those who produced the better shareholder results, produced the good-to-great companies, had incentive systems that were different, and that paid them more than the comparison companies. And that if you paid them more, you get better performance. We found this simply not to be true. There was no evidence that there was a relationship between executive compensation and performance.

You’re saying compensation is not key for success.
Collins: The critical question is not what you pay. The critical question is, do you have the right leader? The right leader, and the right people, will do everything in their power to produce the best results, and to build a great company. Simply because they’re incapable of doing otherwise.

But isn’t this a bit of a naïve view? There is so much greed at the top of big companies.
Collins: If you sat down with Sam Walton when he was building Wal-Mart, and said, “You know, Sam, you could get paid more if you did this, and change your behavior.” The guy worked his brains out. He was curious, and he was passionate. He had $8 billion, and he had bone cancer. And he’s driving around seeing stores. And one of the people who he was riding around with said, “Sam, when are you going to stop doing this, enjoy life? You’re a multi-billionaire. You’re not going to live that much longer. When are you going to stop and enjoy life?” And Walton’s response was, “But for me, this is life.” He loved what he did. He was passionate about what he did. He was committed to making it the best it could be, and to go beyond him. It’s that absolute desperate creative need to do something outstanding that drives them. Not money.

Professor Robert S. Kaplan of Harvard Business School says greed is good. Meaning a greedy business leader who gets compensated based on his success actually brings a company further.
Collins: The greatest creative work – and building a great company is a creative act – is a compulsion. It is a productive neurosis. It is an obsessed need to build something exceptional.

So most successful people have a mental problem?
Collins: If you sat down with Beethoven and you said, “Why do you need to make this Fifth Symphony go in our ears and reshape our brains, and lead us through the depth of darkness and through despair, and then eventually light on the other side? Why? Look, you’re going to get the same number of Kreutzer's whether this is a great symphony or not. Why don’t you just kind of back off, Ludwig? You’re still going to get paid.” He wouldn't understand. Because the point is to write the best Fifth Symphony that he is capable of, that will endure and last and impact ears and souls and hearts and minds and spirit. If you ask the greatest executives, and say, “Why are you trying to make this a great company?” And their company, their Fifth Symphony, their Seventh Symphony, their Ninth Symphony, is – their creative work. Their symphony is what they’re creating as a leader. And it’s no different than a Beethoven.

Beethoven’s success can’t really be measured. It’s art. But a business leader’s success is being measured by nothing else than dollars and cents.
Collins: I disagree. Southwest Airlines had a remarkable leader over the long course of its history named Herb Kelleher. Southwest Airlines is the number one best-performing stock of all publicly traded stocks over the 30-year period, 1972 to 2002. But if you listen to how Herb Kelleher he doesn't talk about his stock price. And he doesn't talk about the money that he made. He sits there and he has a creation, and that creation is this culture. He talks about how all the Southwest people came together after years of working on this culture. When 9/11 came they didn’t cancel a single flight. And all of the Southwest people, who were so dedicated to keeping things alive, and not letting the terrorists win – and, “We’re going to get the airplanes in the air.” And they went, and you see the flight take off. “We’re not canceling our flights.” And Herb Kelleher’s telling that story, and he’s crying. Now, you cannot tell me that his report card is his stock price. His report card is, look at these people. Look at this culture. Look at what we did. Look at our defiance. We will not be defeated. That’s a creation. That is not a number.

When is a leader overrated?
Collins: If a company only did well when they were there, and then they left and the company ceased to do well then they didn’t fulfill the standard of building a company that can outlast them.

Some of the companies you praise experienced this. Crippled companies like Fannie Mae, Citigroup and the now defunct Circuit City have great leaders, according to your book. Were you wrong in your research?
Collins: Let me ask you a question. We study who is healthy and who is not during a set period of time. We find that those who became healthier, had better sleep habits, had better diet, and exercised. Later, some of those same subjects stopped eating well, stopped exercising, and stopped getting a good night’s sleep. And they became unhealthy. Would you say that the principles of health – meaning diet, sleep, and exercise – are negated by the fact that some previously healthy people had stopped having healthy habits?

Obviously not.
Collins: Obviously not. So there’s your answer to the question. Of course the research isn’t wrong. We’re like studying great sports teams that were great at a given moment in time. Our work has never focused on trying to predict who’s going to be great. Nor does it say who’s going to be great after their 15-year run. We only look at that sort of 15-year run of performance.

In the last decade, we’ve seen the dot-com bubble burst. We’ve seen the crooks of Enron and WorldCom. And now we’ve seen the financial crisis. Why do we lack great leadership in business?
Collins: If you look over the course of business history, you find that there have been other times of excess. The 1920s, for example, were a time of excess. We had the 1907 financial crisis. There were the challenges in the late-1800s, with the rise of the robber barons, and kind of the great, almost rapacious entrepreneurs from that time. There’s always been an element of this in the capitalist system, in the business systems. But the forms change. Sometimes it’s sub-prime. Sometimes it’s dot-com. Sometimes it’s leveraged buyout takeovers. Sometimes it’s stock market craziness. It’s never going to go away. It’s an unfortunate part, but it is part of our capitalist system.

You’re saying this is just common practice?
Collins: I think that the cycles are accelerated. In fairly rapid succession you had the kind of merger, leveraged buyout, takeover wave of the ‘80s, followed right into the dot-com boom of the ‘90s, followed by the banking sub-prime financial of the 2000s. That’s starting to be fairly rapid cycle. One thing that could be happening is that we’re starting to see an acceleration of these things. The dot-com was a huge bubble. But who would have thought that we would be seeing the kinds of things that we’re seeing now? They’re very scary things for us to be seeing. Again, I don’t think we understand them. It’s quite severe booms and bubbles and troughs are big and fast. We may see even bigger ones and faster ones in the future.

How do you explain it?
Collins: The time from 1950 to 2000 really was a period of tremendous prosperity and stability. The presence of two giant superpowers created a dangerous world, but it was a relatively stable world. This created a pretty long run of prosperity. And so you had stability, and you had prosperity combined, for a long period of time. My own view is that that’s unlikely to happen again in my lifetime.

Most CEOs are not used to that. They’ve all acted in flourishing times. Can they handle what’s hit them?
Collins: We are unpracticed how to prosper in tremendous turbulence. The very best leaders cannot predict what is going to happen. We are in an era of such instability, and of such uncertainty, and likely to remain that way, that the idea of kind of predicting and planning into your predictions is simply, I think, largely gone from the world.

That is not very helpful advice from a person that writes advice books.
Collins: What has to come in its place is the ability to prepare for what you cannot possibly predict. And that’s a very, very different way of looking at things. You have to prepare for what you cannot possibly predict.

Isn’t that impossible?
Collins: You want to see leaders who are very stoic. Part of the task of leadership in this kind of a world is truly paranoid, and freakishly conservative, in protecting basic things and giving itself big shock absorbers. I mean we’re going to have to see leaders who are much more financially conservative. That gives them massive extra cash on their balance sheets.

Which is a pretty irrational business practice.
Collins: It’s irrational most of the time. But it’s supremely irrational when the really brutal uncertain times come.

Which is an extension of one of your other key findings, when you say that an essential point is to confront the brutal facts.
Collins: As the world goes more turbulent – it’s not just confronting the brutal facts. It is imagining all the terrible brutal facts haven’t yet happened, and to be worried about them. In Good to Great it was “confront the brutal facts”. In Good to Great plus Turbulence, it’s confronting the brutal facts, and imaging and worry obsessively about all the brutal facts that haven’t yet happened but could. And that notion of being a paranoid neurotic freak is going to be part of the leadership requirements for turbulent times.

The paranoid freak brings us to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. He’s considered one of the best leaders ever. People say that his big ideas matter most. While you say big ideas are nice, but not necessarily critical for becoming great. Does Steve Jobs undermine your theory?
Collins: Any given idea can be fairly quickly copied. Your creative culture is more important than any given idea. If you’ve had to figure out how to be successful because of the supreme execution of what you’ve done, then you don’t necessarily have to be first, or have the biggest idea. Take the iPod. The beauty of the iPod is its supreme execution. Sony also was working on digital music players. The idea of being able to carry a lot of music around with you and listen to it had been around for years. What distinguishes it is the supreme execution of it.

And what does Jobs have that others don’t?
Collins: Steve Jobs is an industrial Beethoven. I think that the Macintosh is like the Third Symphony. And the iPod is like the Fifth Symphony. And maybe the iPhone is the Seventh Symphony. I admire his dedication to creating great things, tremendously. He’s one of the people I really admire.

So Jobs might be admired for the wrong things. He mostly took existing ideas, put them together and turned them into great things.
Collins: They’re no great things without the supreme execution around them. A lot of other people have the same ideas. A lot of people could have had the idea of “Bum bum bum baba baba bum [humming Beethoven’s Fifth].” But not everybody could have written the Fifth Symphony.

You’re saying it’s more important who is doing something than what is being done?
Collins: You can’t predict what the world is going to throw at you. Then your best strategy is to have really great people who can deal with whatever the world throws at you. The best leaders we’ve studied truly thought about getting the right people first. Your direction may have to change. If you’ve got the right people, you can more easily change direction.

What does it mean for turbulent times?
Collins: I’ve been a climber, a rock climber most of my life. And as a rock climber you never know what the cliff is going to throw at you. In the big mountains, you don’t know what you might get in terms of weather or ice or conditions. So your most important decision is who your climbing partner is. Because when the mountain turns against you, you want to have a partner with you who you can find a way out of it. In turbulent world, it’s even more important that you think first about who. You cannot possibly predict the what.

Talent is very important. But talent is also very expensive. Nobody seems to be willing to pay for talent.
Collins: Turbulent times are your friend. This is the time where you'll be able to attract talent that is freed up. The greatest opportunity right now is all those great people who are going to be looking for something to do. And if you don’t seize that opportunity, you're crazy.

And another principle you talk about is the so-called hedgehog concept. Meaning, you have to find the one thing that you’re really good at, and then concentrate on it. U.S. companies are under enormous pressure to have strong quarterly results. It’s hardly possible to develop a lasting policy, as you suggest.
Collins: It is possible to do. People have done it. That doesn't mean it’s easy. And so one of the things that we learned about the leaders we studied is that they do two things. Number one, they don’t let the short term pressures of Wall Street drive them into irrational decisions. Part of being a great leader is to say, “I'm not going to do that.” That’s the will.

But how do they also then preserve their ability to lead, with those pressures?
Collins: While not being pressured by Wall Street they put even tougher pressure on themselves and their companies to deliver results that buy them freedom. The whole key is that they are always building for many years down the road. But they’re also expecting of themselves to deliver short-term results.

Can great leaders have a healthy balance of work and life?
Collins: I have good news, and I have bad news. The bad news is that about half of the Good to Great leaders didn’t really seem to have any other life but building the great company. I think they defined a great life as building a great company. The good news is it was only half.

Who is able to achieve this balance?
Collins: Look at someone like Coleman Mockler who was the chief executive of Gillette during the bad old takeover days. He would spend time always with his family and his children on the weekends. He would not allow even the takeover battles to intrude upon his family time, his worship time and on his house projects, repairing the gutters of his house. And yet, he was one of the greatest chief executives we ever studied.

What does a leader need to do if he wants a live?
Collins: It’s a choice. Some leaders choose to have a life defined not entirely by work. And some choose to define their life entirely by work. Work is infinite, and time is finite. The sheer amount of things that we potentially could and have to do totally dwarfs the number of hours we have. Working more hours will never get you there. The real choice is how you use those hours. You have to manage your time, not your work.

You choose not to teach at a university, but to build your own research lab. Why?
Collins: I used to teach entrepreneurship and small business at Stanford Business School. I used to always say to my students, “You know, you don’t have to go to work for a big, established company, to be in business. You could go start your own.” One day my students started saying to me, “Wait a minute. You’re telling us we should go do something more entrepreneurial. Why don’t you follow your own advice?” I realized that just as you don’t have to be at IBM to be in business, you don’t have to be at a university to be a professor. So I decided to take an independent path, trying to follow some of my own advice I gave to my students. The second reason is that the nature of the kinds of research that I like to do, six to eight years a project. That tends not to fit in the normal academic enterprise.

Why do you study management?
Collins: Sheer, unadulterated curiosity is the fundamental driver that I have. I’m really interested in what makes great human systems. It so happened that I started studying businesses. But to me, they’re the data set to try to understand something fundamental. It’s a very easy link between Beethoven and Steve Jobs. I don’t think in terms of business. I think in terms of great creations. And the creations that I’ve tended to study are people who’ve built great cultures and great companies. We live in social systems. We live in organizations. I just got really curious about, what separates those who create the great ones, from the ones who don’t?

You said you had hoped that church pastors and coaches were going to read your book. What’s the relationship between something so rational as a business and something rather irrational, as a religious belief?
Collins: It’s not just church pastors. It would be anybody in the social sectors. Half of our readership comes from outside business. The military, arts organizations, education, health care, church pastors. A culture of discipline of a great organization – that’s not a business idea, right? A great symphony orchestra is a culture of discipline. And a great military unit is a culture of discipline. And a great artistic creator brings discipline to his or her work. A great school, that educates kids and where all of them read by the time they should – that’s also a culture of discipline. Building a culture of discipline around a lot of these ideas could help people in all those walks of life. To me, it’s really exciting when a police chief can say, you know, “We’ve been building a culture that reduces crime in our city.” Or a principle talks about, “We’ve been building a culture where more kids read.” Or somebody talks about, “We’ve been building a culture that is systematically helping to reduce the level of cancer recurrence,” right? And you talk to somebody else, and they talk about – you know, that, “We’re creating a culture that plays such beautiful music,” or “We’re creating a culture where we win. These kids go out, and they win championships.” And to me, that’s human. That’s life. That’s exciting. Business is a subset of human endeavor. It’s a subset of the quest to try to build and to do something really exceptional.

Source: Hossli.com

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  • Highly programmable, off-air decoders Message Logging & remote control Multiple I/O combinations and capabilities
  • Network monitoring and alarm reporting

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  • Emergency Mass Alerting Remote telemetry switching & control Fire station automation PC interfacing and message management Paging software and customized solutions Message interception, filtering, redirection, printing & logging Cross band repeating, paging coverage infill, store and forward
  • Alarm interfaces, satellite linking, IP transmitters, on-site systems

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Mobile Data Terminals & Two Way Wireless  Solutions

mobile data terminal
  • Fleet tracking, messaging, job processing, and field service management Automatic vehicle location (AVL), GPS
  • CDMA, GPRS, ReFLEX, conventional, and trunked radio interfaces
radio interface

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Contact
Postal
Address:
WiPath Communications LLC
4845 Dumbbarton Court
Cumming, GA 30040
Street
Address:
4845 Dumbbarton Court
Cumming, GA 30040
Web site: www.wipath.com left arrow CLICK
E-mail: info@wipath.com left arrow CLICK
Phone: 770-844-6218
Fax: 770-844-6574
WiPath Communications

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Preferred Wireless

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Equipment For Sale
Terminals & Controllers:
1 Motorola C-Net Platinum Controller
1 Motorola ASC1500 Controller
25 C-2010 Controllers
50 Glenayre GPS Kits, Trimble RX & cables
1 Skydata Model 5090 Uplink Power Control
  Skydata Model 8360 MSK Modulator
8 Skydata Multi Channel Receivers - NEW
1 GL3000L Terminal (e-mail for list of cards)
2 GL3000ES Terminals (e-mail for list of cards)
2 GL3100 RF Director (e-mail for list of cards)
1 Zetron Model 2200 Terminal (e-mail for list of cards)
Link Transmitters:
1 Glenayre QT6994, 150W, 900 MHz Link TX
1 Glenayre QT4201, 25W Midband Link TX
3 Motorola 10W, 900 MHz Link TX (C35JZB6106)
2 Motorola 30W, Midband Link TX (C42JZB6106AC)
VHF Paging Transmitters
5 Glenayre GLT8411’s, 250W VHF, C2000
1 Glenayre GLT 8611, 500W VHF, C2000
2 Motorola VHF PURC-5000 125W, ACB or TRC
2 Motorola 30W, Midband Link TX (C42JZB6106AC)
UHF Paging Transmitters:
10 Glenayre UHF GLT5340, 125W, DSP Exciter
2 Motorola UHF Nucleus 125W NAC
900 MHz Paging Transmitters:
1 Glenayre GLT 8600, 500W
24 Glenayre GLT-8500, 250W, C2000, w/ or w/o I20
6 Motorola PURC 5000, 300W, DRC or ACB

 SEE WEB FOR COMPLETE LIST:
www.preferredwireless.com/equipment
left arrow CLICK HERE

Too Much To List • Call or E-Mail
Preferred Wireless
Rick McMichael
888-429-4171

rickm@preferredwireless.com
left arrow CLICK HERE
www.preferredwireless.com/equipment
left arrow OR HERE
Preferred Wireless

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UCOM Paging

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Satellite Uplink
As Low As
$500/month

  • Data input speeds up to 38.4 Kbps Dial-in modem access for Admin Extremely reliable & secure
  • Hot standby up link components

Knowledgeable Tech Support 24/7

Contact Alan Carle Now!
1-888-854-2697 x272
acarle@ucom.com www.ucom.com

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UCOM Paging

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HMCE Inc.

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hmce@bellsouth.net left arrow Click to e-mail
http://www.h-mce.com left arrow Paging Web Site
Joshua's Mission left arrow Helping Wounded Marines Homepage
Joshua's Mission left arrow Joshua's Mission Press Release
HMCE Inc.

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minilec service logo

 

motorola logo Motorola Authorized Service Center for Paging and Cellular.

Ask for Special Newsletter Pricing.

Please call: 800-222-6075 ext. 301 for pricing.

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Contact
E-mail: duane.rose@minilec.com  left arrow
Minilec Service, Inc.
Suite A
9207 Deering Ave.
Chatsworth, CA 91311
Minilec Service

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BLOOSTONLAW TELECOM UPDATE

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BloostonLaw Telecom Update

Published by the Law Offices of Blooston, Mordkofsky, Dickens, Duffy & Prendergast, LLP

[Selected portions reproduced here with the firm's permission.]

www.bloostonlaw.com

   Vol. 12, No. 9 March 4, 2009   

Obama Wants To Charge Spectrum License Fees To Help Reduce Deficit

President Obama’s record $3.9 trillion budget includes spectrum licenses fees, which revives a proposal that has failed to move in the past. But with the new Democratic administration intending to cut the projected $1.7 trillion budget deficit in half by 2013, the latest proposal to place a fee on wireless carriers and other spectrum license holders could get more traction this time around in the Democratic-led Congress, according to Reuters and other media outlets. Wireless providers, which have paid billions of dollars to acquire licenses in government auctions since the mid-1990s, have opposed spectrum fees in the past and are expected to do the same as lawmakers take up the Obama budget. The annual license fees would start at $50 million in 2009, jump to $200 million in 2010, and gradually increase over the next 10 years, generating an estimated total revenue of $4.8 billion, according to Reuters. BloostonLaw has prepared a suggested letter for interested clients to send to their Congressional delegation opposing the proposed fees. Please contact us if you wish to send such letter. BloostonLaw contacts: Hal Mordkofsky, John Prendergast, Richard Rubino, and Cary Mitchell.

LAW & REGULATION

COMMENT SOUGHT ON WHETHER CREDITORS CAN SEND AUTO-MESSAGES TO CERTAIN WIRELESS NUMBERS: Paul D. S. Edwards has filed a petition for an expedited clarification and declaratory ruling regarding the FCC’s rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Specifically, Edwards asks the Commission to clarify whether a creditor may place auto-dialed or prerecorded message calls to a telephone number associated with wireless service that was provided to the creditor initially as a telephone number associated with landline service. Section 64.1200(a)(1)(iii) of the Commission’s rules prohibits the initiation of “any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice, to any telephone number assigned to . . . cellular telephone service. . . .” The Commission concluded that such calls to wireless numbers that are provided by the called party to a creditor in connection with an existing debt are permissible as calls made with the “prior express consent” of the called party. Edwards asserts that the Commission’s ruling permits debt collection calls to a wireless telephone number only when the consumer, in that instance, provides the wireless telephone number to the creditor. Edwards contends that when the creditor is initially provided a “landline” telephone number, and subsequently that “landline” number is ported to a cellular telephone, an established business relationship, “prior express consent,” or other exemption from section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) of the TCPA is not created. Edwards concludes that compliance with the TCPA requires that the consumer must have provided the creditor a telephone number assigned to a wireless service in order for calls to the wireless telephone number to be permissible. Comments in this CG Docket No. 02-278 proceeding will be due 15 days after publication of the item in the Federal Register, and replies will be due 10 days thereafter. BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

INDUSTRY

RCR WIRELESS NEWS CLOSES: After 25 years, RCR Wireless News suspended publication of its print and online products on March 3 and closed its operations. “Unfortunately,” said Crain Communications, owner of RCR, “the market for RCR's products has been hit particularly hard by the global financial meltdown.”

DEADLINES

MARCH 16: FCC FORM 477, LOCAL COMPETITION & BROADBAND REPORTING FORM. In its June 12, 2008 WC Docket No. 07-38 Form 477 Report & Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) to improve data collection, the Commission modified Form 477 to require broadband providers to report the number of broadband connections in service in individual Census Tracts. In order to generate an even more complete picture of broadband adoption in the United States, it proposed additional methods to add to the data reported by Form 477 filers, including a voluntary household self-reporting system, and a recommendation to the Census Bureau that the American Community Survey questionnaire be modified to gather information about broadband availability and subscription in households. To further improve the quality of collected data, the FCC adopted three additional changes to FCC Form 477. First, it now requires broadband service providers to report data on broadband service speed in conjunction with subscriber counts according to new categories for download and upload speeds. These new speed tiers will better identify services that support advanced applications. Second, it amended reporting requirements for mobile wireless broadband providers to require them to report the number of subscribers whose data plans allow them to browse the Internet and access the Internet content of their choice. Finally, it required providers of interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to report subscribership information on Form 477. Then, on reconsideration, it added a requirement that filers include the percentage of residential broadband connections.

Who Must File Form 477: Three types of entities must file this form.

(1) Facilities-based Providers of Broadband Connections to End User Locations: Entities that are facilities-based providers of broadband connections – which are wired “lines” or wireless “channels” that enable the end user to receive information from and/or send information to the Internet at information transfer rates exceeding 200 kbps in at least one direction – must complete and file the applicable portions of this form for each state in which the entity provides one or more such connections to end user locations. For the purposes of Form 477, an entity is a “facilities-based” provider of broadband connections to end user locations if it owns the portion of the physical facility that terminates at the end user location, if it obtains unbundled network elements (UNEs), special access lines, or other leased facilities that terminate at the end user location and provisions/equips them as broadband, or if it provisions/equips a broadband wireless channel to the end user location over licensed or unlicensed spectrum. Such entities include incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers (LECs), cable system operators, fixed wireless service providers (including “wireless ISPs”), terrestrial mobile wireless service providers, satellite mobile wireless service providers, MMDS/BRS providers, electric utilities, municipalities, and other entities. (Such entities do not include equipment suppliers unless the equipment supplier uses the equipment to provision a broadband connection that it offers to the public for sale. Such entities also do not include providers of fixed wireless services (e.g., “Wi-Fi” and other wireless ethernet, or wireless local area network, applications) that only enable local distribution and sharing of a premises broadband facility.)

(2) Providers of Wired or Fixed Wireless Local Telephone Services: Incumbent and competitive LECs must complete and file the applicable portions of the form for each state in which they provide local exchange service to one or more end user customers (which may include “dial-up” ISPs).

(3) Providers of Mobile Telephony Services: Facilities-based providers of mobile telephony services must complete and file the applicable portions of this form for each state in which they serve one or more mobile telephony subscribers. A mobile telephony service is a real-time, two-way switched voice service that is interconnected with the public switched network using an in-network switching facility that enables the provider to reuse frequencies and accomplish seamless handoff of subscriber calls. Obvious examples include cellular, PCS, and “covered” SMR carriers, but may include services provided on other wireless spectrum such as AWS, BRS and 700 MHz if configured to fit the above definition. A mobile telephony service provider is considered “facilities-based” if it serves a subscriber using spectrum for which the entity holds a license, that it manages, or for which it has obtained the right to use via lease or other arrangement (e.g., with a Band Manager).

BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

MARCH 31: FCC FORM 507, UNIVERSAL SERVICE QUARTERLY LINE COUNT UPDATE. Line count updates are required to recalculate a carrier's per line universal service support, and is filed with the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC). This information must be submitted on July 31 each year by all rate-of-return incumbent carriers, and on a quarterly basis if a competitive eligible telecommunications carrier (CETC) has initiated service in the rate-of-return incumbent carrier’s service area and reported line count data to USAC in the rate-of-return incumbent carrier’s service area, in order for the incumbent carrier to be eligible to receive Interstate Common Line Support (ICLS). This quarterly filing is due March 31 and covers lines served as of September 30, 2007. (Normally this filing is due March 30, but this year, March 30 falls on a Sunday.) Incumbent carriers filing on a quarterly basis must also file on July 31 (for lines served as of December 31, 2007); September 30 (for lines served as of March 31, 2008); and December 30 (for lines served as of June 30, 2008). BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

MARCH 31: FCC FORM 525, COMPETITIVE CARRIER LINE COUNT QUARTERLY REPORT. Competitive eligible telecommunications carriers (CETCs) are eligible to receive high cost support if they serve lines in an incumbent carrier’s service area, and that incumbent carrier receives high cost support. CETCs are eligible to receive the same per-line support amount received by the incumbent carrier in whose study area the CETC serves lines. Unlike the incumbent carriers, CETCs will use FCC Form 525 to submit their line count data to Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC). This quarterly report must be filed by the last business day of March (for lines served as of September 30 of the previous year); the last business day of July (for lines served as of December 31 of the current year); the last business day of September (for lines served as of March 31 of the current year); and the last business day of December (for lines served as of June 30 of the current year). CETCs must file the number of working loops served in the service area of an incumbent carrier, disaggregated by the incumbent carrier’s cost zones, if applicable, for High Cost Loop (HCL), Local Switching Support (LSS), Long Term Support (LTS), and Interstate Common Line Support (ICLS). ICLS will also require the loops to be reported by customer class as further described below. For Interstate Access Support (IAS), CETCs must file the number of working loops served in the service area of an incumbent carrier by Unbundled Network Element (UNE) zone and customer class. Working loops provided by CETCs in service areas of non-rural incumbents receiving High Cost Model (HCM) support must be filed by wire center or other methodology as determined by the state regulatory authority. CETCs may choose to complete FCC Form 525 and submit it to USAC, or designate an agent to file the form on its behalf. BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

MARCH 31: FCC FORM 508, PROJECTED ANNUAL COMMON LINE REVENUE REQUIREMENT FORM: Section 54.903(a)(1) of the FCC's rules requires each rate-of-return incumbent telecommunications carrier to provide information needed to calculate the Projected Annual Common Line Revenue Requirement for each of its study areas in the upcoming funding year to the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC). This information must be submitted on March 31 each year, in order for the carrier to be eligible to receive Interstate Common Line Support. This collection of information stems from the Commission's authority under Section 254 of the Communications Act. The data in the form will be used to calculate the amount of support, if any, that each reporting carrier is eligible to receive from the Interstate Common Line Support Mechanism. Carriers are permitted to submit a correction to their March 31 projected carrier common line revenue requirements and supporting data from April 1 until June 30 for the upcoming funding year (July 31, 2008, through June 30, 2009). Additionally, on June 30, carriers are permitted to submit an update to the projected data for the ICLS funding year ending on that date. Permitting these revisions to projected data for current and upcoming ICLS funding years will mitigate the lag between projected and actual data filings and give carriers more meaningful opportunities to revise projections to adjust ICLS where necessary. After the June 30 correction deadline each year, any corrections to projected common line revenue requirement and supporting data shall be made in the form of true-ups, using actual cost and revenue data that a carrier must report in FCC Form 509, Annual Common Line Actual Cost Data Collection Form. (This form is due December 31.) BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

MARCH 31: ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT STATUS REPORTS. Carriers are reminded that Section 43.82 of the Commission’s rules requires each facilities-based carrier that provides international telecommunications services to file a Circuit Status Report by March 31, 2008. The report should contain data as of December 31, 2007. The information that must be filed and filing format for the Circuit Status Report is described in detail in the Circuit Status Filing Manual. All facilities-based carriers must file a Circuit Status Report if they had any activated or idle circuits as of December 31, 2007. If carriers did not have any activated or idle circuits as of December 31, 2007, they are not required to file this report or file any letter stating that they have no circuits to report. The Filing Manual requires carriers to report the total number of activated and the total number of idle circuits using the following categories: submarine cable, satellite, and landline (cable or microwave). The Filing Manual defines international facilities-based circuits as “international circuits in which a carrier has an ownership interest. For this purpose, the term ownership interest includes outright ownership, indefeasible right of use (IRU) interests, or leasehold interests in bare capacity in an international facility, regardless of whether the underlying facility is a common or non-common carrier submarine cable or … satellite system.” The Filing Manual further explains that leasehold interests in bare capacity “are distinct from private lines leased from another reporting international carrier.” Thus, any telecommunications carrier that has leased an international circuit from another common carrier, a non-common carrier, or a foreign carrier, other than a lease of private line “service” or “capacity” from a common carrier, must file a Circuit Status Report and include that circuit in its report. Such a circuit should be reported as a facilities-based circuit, and not as a facilities-based resold circuit. Private line resellers should report their resold circuits using the Facility Codes 11, 12 and 13 as specified in the Filing Manual. Facilities-based carriers that are regulated as dominant on particular U.S. international routes under Section 63.10 must provide their circuit status information on a facility-specific basis for the dominant route only. Carriers should provide the information in a separate appendix using the same table format in the Filing Manual, but they should add a column labeled "Facility Name" after "Data field #2". Carriers are reminded to file their reports on compact disc (CD) media. The FCC will not accept reports filed on diskettes. But it will accept Excel files. BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

APRIL 1: FCC FORM 499-A, TELECOMMUNICATIONS REPORTING WORKSHEET. This form must be filed by all contributors to the Universal Service Fund (USF) support mechanisms, the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Fund, the cost recovery mechanism for the North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA), and the shared costs of local number portability (LNP). Contributors include every telecommunications carrier that provides interstate, intrastate, and international telecommunications, and certain other entities that provide interstate telecommunications for a fee. Even common carriers that qualify for the de minimis exemption must file Form 499-A. Entities whose universal service contributions will be less than $10,000 qualify for the de minimis exemption. De minimis entities do not have to file the quarterly report (FCC Form 499-Q), which was due February 1, and will again be due May 1. Form 499-Q relates to universal service contributions, but not to the TRS, NANPA, and LNP mechanisms. Form 499-A relates to all of these mechanisms and, hence, applies to all providers of interstate, intrastate, and international telecommunications services. Form 499-A contains revenue information for January 1 through December 31 of the prior calendar year. And Form 499-Q contains revenue information from the prior quarter plus projections for the next quarter. Block 2-B of the Form 499-A requires each carrier to designate an agent in the District of Columbia upon whom all notices, process, orders, and decisions by the FCC may be served on behalf of that carrier in proceedings before the Commission. Carriers receiving this newsletter may specify our law firm as their D.C. agent for service of process using the information in our masthead. There is no charge for this service. BloostonLaw contacts: Hal Mordkofsky, Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and John Prendergast.

APRIL 10: DTV EDUCATION REPORT. New 700 MHz licensees from Auction No. 73 are required to file a report with the FCC concerning their efforts to educate consumers about the upcoming transition to digital television (DTV). Last summer, we explained that the FCC’s Part 27 rules require 700 MHz licensees that won licenses in Auction No. 73 to file quarterly reports on their DTV consumer outreach efforts through the Spring of 2009. However, in an apparent contradiction, the same rules do not impose any substantive consumer education requirements on 700 MHz license holders. This situation has not changed. The reporting rule simply states that “the licensee holding such authorization must file a report with the Commission indicating whether, in the previous quarter, it has taken any outreach efforts to educate consumers about the transition from analog broadcast television service to digital broadcast television service (DTV) and, if so, what specific efforts were undertaken.” Many licensees may not have initiated 700 MHz service as of yet. However, to the extent they are also an Eligible Telecommunications Carrier (ETC) and recipient of federal USF funds, separate FCC rules found in 47 C.F.R. Part 54 (Universal Service) require ETCs to send monthly DTV transition notices to all Lifeline/Link-Up customers (e.g., as part of their monthly bill), and to include information about the DTV transition as part of any Lifeline or Link-Up publicity campaigns until March 31, 2009. BloostonLaw contacts: Hal Mordkofsky and Cary Mitchell. APRIL 20: FCC FORM 497, LOW INCOME QUARTERLY REPORT. This form, the Lifeline and Link-Up Worksheet, must be submitted to the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) by all eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) that request reimbursement for participating in the low-income program. The form must be submitted by the third Monday after the end of each quarter. It is available at: www.universalservice.org. BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

MAY 1: FCC FORM 499-Q, TELECOMMUNICATIONS REPORTING WORKSHEET. All telecommunications common carriers that expect to contribute more than $10,000 to federal Universal Service Fund (USF) support mechanisms must file this quarterly form. The FCC has modified this form in light of its recent decision to establish interim measures for USF contribution assessments. The form contains revenue information from the prior quarter plus projections for the next quarter. Form 499-Q relates only to USF contributions. It does not relate to the cost recovery mechanisms for the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Fund, the North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA), and the shared costs of local number portability (LNP), which are covered in the annual form (Form 499-A) that was due April 1. BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens and Gerry Duffy.

MAY 1: RATE INTEGRATION CERTIFICATION. Non-dominant inter-exchange carriers (IXCs) that provide de-tariffed domestic interstate services must certify that they are providing such services in compliance with their geographic rate averaging and rate integration obligations. An officer of the company must sign this annual certification under oath. The FCC has issued the following guidelines: (1) Any carrier that provides interstate services must charge its subscribers in rural and high-cost areas rates that do not exceed the rates that the carrier charges subscribers in urban areas; (2) to the extent that a carrier offers optional calling plans, contract tariffs, discounts, promotions, and private line services to its interstate subscribers in one state, it must use the same ratemaking methodology and rate structure when offering such services in any other state; (3) an interstate carrier may depart from geographic rate averaging when offering contract tariffs, Tariff 12 offerings, optional calling plans, temporary promotions, and private line services; and (4) carriers may offer optional calling plans on a geographically limited basis as part of a temporary promotion that does not exceed 90 days. But this limited exception does not exempt optional calling plans from geographic rate averaging requirements. Clients with questions about the FCC's de-tariffing or rate integration requirements should contact us. We have a model rate integration certification letter that may be printed on your letterhead. BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens and Gerry Duffy.

MAY 31: FCC FORM 395, EMPLOYMENT REPORT. Common carriers, including wireless carriers, with 16 or more full-time employees must file their annual Common Carrier Employment Reports (FCC Form 395) by May 31. This report tracks carrier compliance with rules requiring recruitment of minority employees. Further, the FCC requires all common carriers to report any employment discrimination complaints they received during the past year. That information is also due on May 31. The FCC encourages carriers to complete the discrimination report requirement by filling out Section V of Form 395, rather than submitting a separate report. Clients who would like assistance in filing Form 395 should contact Richard Rubino.

FCC Meetings and Deadlines

Mar. 5 – FCC open meeting.

Mar. 9 – Deadline for reply comments on CTIA proposal to transition cellular licensing to CMA geographic market areas (RM-11510).

Mar. 9 – Deadline for comments on Sprint Nextel request to extend BAS relocation deadline (ET Docket No. 02-55).

Mar. 10 – NTIA, RUS, FCC joint meeting on broadband initiatives. Mar. 16 – FCC Form 477, Local Competition and Broadband Reporting Form, is due. (Extended from Mar. 2.)

Mar. 19 – Deadline for reply comments on Sprint Nextel request to extend BAS relocation deadline (ET Docket No. 02-55).

Mar. 20 – Deadline for comments on auction procedures for Auction No. 79 (FM Construction Permits) (AU Docket No. 09- 21).

Mar. 23 – Deadline for filing certain information collection statements regarding NET 911 Act (PS Docket No. 09-14).

Mar. 27 – Deadline for reply comments on NOI regarding FCC’s annual video competition report (MB Docket No. 07-269).

Mar. 31 – FCC Form 507, Universal Service Quarterly Line Count Update, is due.

Mar. 31 – FCC Form 525, Competitive Carrier Line Count Quarterly Report, is due.

Mar. 31 – FCC Form 508, Projected Annual Common Line Revenue Requirement Form, is due.

Mar. 31 – Annual International Circuit Status Report is due.

Apr. 1 – FCC Form 499-A, Telecommunications Reporting Worksheet, is due.

Apr. 1 – Revised DTV Consumer Education requirements for ETCs, MVPDs take effect.

Apr. 1 – Certain sections of DTV Delay Act Omnibus Order take effect (47 C.F.R. Sections 15.124, 54.418, and 76.1630).

Apr. 1 – Deadline for reply comments on auction procedures for Auction No. 79 (FM Construction Permits) (AU Docket No. 09-21).

Apr. 10 – Auction 73 winners must file quarterly report covering DTV consumer education outreach efforts for period Jan.-Mar. 2009.

Apr. 11 – Deadline for FCC to act on Embarq forbearance petition regarding IP-to-PSTN voice traffic, or have it deemed granted (WC Docket No. 08-8).

Apr. 20 – FCC Form 497, Low Income Quarterly Report, is due.

May 1 – FTC begins enforcement of Red Flag Rules.

May 1 – Rate Integration Certification is due.

This newsletter is not intended to provide legal advice. Those interested in more information should contact the firm.

Source: Blooston, Mordkofsky, Dickens, Duffy and Prendergast, LLP For additional information, contact Hal Mordkofsky at 202-828-5520 or halmor@bloostonlaw.com

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Easy Solutions

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Easy Solutions provides cost effective computer and wireless solutions at affordable prices. We can help in most any situation with your communications systems. We have many years of experience and a vast network of resources to support the industry, your system and an ever changing completive landscape.

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Easy Solutions

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Hark Technologies

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Wireless Communication Solutions

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ISI-LX Internet Serial Interface with Protocol Conversion

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IPG Internet Paging Gateway

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PageTrack

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Omega Unified Messaging Server

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InfoRad Wireless Office

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AlphaPage® First Responder (Windows 2000, XP, Vista). When the message matters, AlphaPage® First Responder is the fast, reliable, and secure solution Emergency Management Professionals choose. AlphaPage® First Responder is designed for the modern professional who requires full-featured commercial wireless messaging capabilities that include advanced features such as automated Route-on-Failure, custom message templates, and secure messaging with SSL encryption. AlphaCare™ extended premium support plans are also available. For more information on all InfoRad Wireless Messaging software solutions, and fully supported free demos, please click on the InfoRad logo.

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Paging & Wireless Network Planners

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PAGING & WIRELESS
NETWORK PLANNERS LLC

WIRELESS SPECIALISTS

www.pagingplanners.com
rmercer@pagingplanners.com

R.H. (Ron) Mercer
Consultant
217 First Street South
East Northport, NY 11731
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Cell Phone: 631-786-9359

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Paging & Wireless Network Planners

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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An Open Letter To Paging Equipment Vendors

From: Jim Nelson
Subject: Paging Industry future
Date: February 28, 2009 11:20:22 AM CST

Dear Fellow Vendor,

Please take the time to completely read this e-mail. I realize it is long but the future of the paging industry, and your role in it, need serious discussion.

After several months of discussions, and feedback from an impressive number of interested companies, the American Association of Paging Carriers (AAPC) and European Mobile Messaging Association (EMMA) organizations have announced plans to hold the first annual Global Paging Convention (GPC) in Montreal, Canada, June 17-19, 2009.

I’m writing to you as a fellow vendor to share my thoughts with you about the importance of this Global event and to collect your individual ideas about it as well. It is vital to our industry that the event is beneficial to each attendee and participant. The only way to insure this will happen is for the planners and organizers to hear from you.

I find myself in a somewhat unique situation that perhaps makes it logical that I am the one to contact you. I’m honored to be a member of the Board of Directors of AAPC and EMMA and a member of the AAPC, GPC, EWA planning and marketing committees as well as Vice-Chair of the Paging Technical Committee (PTC). This gives me an ideal opportunity to express what I hear from you and help shape the direction of our meetings and agendas.

I would like to know what topics you would like to have discussed in the conferences, what companies and customer segments you would like to see there, and do you want to hear about new products and services that are successful in other parts of the world? If so, please read on and respond back to me at GPCcomments@prismpaging.com.

What would make the meetings so important for you it would cause you to attend, exhibit, sponsor and present? With your input we can make this event so interesting that it draws the attendees you want to meet.

Here are some of my thoughts about this. I believe the paging industry as we used to know it with a strong commercial operator base has changed, and must change even more. Commercial operators are looking around the world for new ideas about products and services that can help transform their businesses and provide growth and financial stability. Continuing to look within a local market will offer little more than revamping of existing ideas. This marketplace needs new ideas and innovation but where do you get them? Talking amongst ourselves has shown little progress.

As a vendor where do you turn for ideas? Remember the old adage “If you build what the customer wants…they will buy it”? Ok, maybe I made that up, but you must meet with potential customers to discuss what they need. Even if you already have a great product to offer you still need to meet with customers to effectively propose what you can do for them.

I have seen the sharing of great ideas at the AAPC and EMMA meetings where we had attendees from several countries come forward and openly talk about what works and doesn't work in their countries and markets. This is a “priceless” experience and education, one that we must build on.

The Global Paging Convention has been created to bring together people and companies from around the world to create a forum for exchanging ideas and formulating plans for going forward. Sure, it’s fun to travel around and visit new and exciting places but whose budget can afford that today? Why not make one trip and see everyone? Owners and bean counters…you’ve got to like this budget controlling opportunity!

During these challenging economic conditions your investment of time and money in the Global Paging Convention offers the best opportunity to maximize your exposure to the largest potential customer base you will see all year. You just cannot afford to miss it.

And, let’s not forget those end customers and private system operators. Hospitals are one of the largest users of pagers but often have special requirements. Factories are desperate to save costs and increase manufacturing efficiency. Public Safety is always looking for better ways to inform and protect the public. How do you know what they want? Why not invite them and ask them?

Sure, maybe you don’t want your existing customers to see what your competitor is offering, or what similar customers are using, but you can’t hide from that! Most of us advertise and word spreads throughout the user community so why not hear from your customer what they think of other products and systems.

Scary? It shouldn't be. If your customer is interested in another company’s products why don’t you strengthen your relationship with your customer and become a reseller for those products and services? Gone are the days of large vendor companies that can build all and sell all products. We have already seen how working together can result in more sales opportunities and more satisfied customers. Try it…it works!

And be sure to bring your products to the GPC and GET AN EXHIBIT SPACE to present your products and services. The more exhibitors we have makes it more interesting to the attendees. Or should I just say “pssst…your competitor is going to have an exhibit there. Don’t you want to seem as important?”

Now let me tell you about some feedback I have already received and it is a pet peeve I always hear about at each meeting. Some vendors do not pay for exhibit space and just walk around the floor talking about what they do and even distract visitors from exhibitors booths. Do you think this is fair? Do you think this should not be tolerated anymore? Let’s hear about it.

Is there an alternative type of vendor registration that would allow vendors that provide service or support as their product to participate in the exhibits? How about an area with several tables where, for a special fee, they can meet with customers without infringing on the rights of other exhibitors?

Here are a few other thoughts to comment on.

How many hours of exhibit time do you want? Do you want exclusive time that does not compete with presentations? Do you want to be tied to an exhibit while others are meeting, presenting or socializing? Be careful what you wish for as you might get it, and have to live with it.

Do you want end users (medical, industrial, public safety, etc.) to attend? What would make it interesting enough for them to attend? Can they afford to attend?

What private system operators would you like to see there? Can you help convince them to attend?

What products and services would you like to see there, or not see there? (Sorry…your competitor is already signed up…remember!)

Would you like a grand opening in the exhibit area? What activity would you like to see during this time? Wine and cheese party? Roving bands? Magicians? Zoo animals? What would increase the number of attendees?

And here’s one more because of the economy. What about limiting exhibits to table tops or banner stands so we can all be together in a convenient area AND SAVE SHIPPING COSTS.

And now that we saved you some money, let’s get you to sponsor something. The GPC Committee has put together some excellent sponsorship opportunities giving you lot’s of recognition for helping fund the meeting and some of its expenses. Without sponsorships we would have to charge more for attending and certainly have to sell tickets to high cost events such as the Grand Opening.

We cannot expect the same companies or organizations to continue to fund these events so no matter if your company is small or large you can help sponsor the meeting. Splitting the cost of sponsorship with one or more other companies is welcomed and you still get recognition!

I must also mention the importance of the Paging Technical Committee and the great work it does for the industry. We are glad the PTC can hold its meeting just prior to the opening of the GPC, but what is even more important is, since you are coming to the GPC you should also come to the PTC meeting and get involved. It costs you nothing to get in!

The PTC is refocusing and looking for technologies that are complimentary with paging technology. Our vendor community has expanded their products to include uses of Wi-Fi, WiMAX and even DECT and GSM for enhanced functionality. We must look deeper and find viable ways to advance one-way and two-way paging products to make sure our protocols are doing the most for our industry. Do you have ideas for new features or functionality for existing or new protocols? We want to hear from you. Get off the sidelines and join the PTC. Help us move the industry forward.

I should also tell you we are asking these same types of questions of all the commercial and private system operators we know around the world. We want the Global Paging Convention to exceed everyone’s expectations.

So help us! E-mail back to this special e-mail address GPCcomments@prismpaging.com and give us your thoughts. And if you help make this 1st annual convention a success I'll do all I can to get you preferred exhibit space at the 100th annual Global Paging Convention in 2109.

OK, I'll stop as I think you get the message. This is your opportunity to help shape the GPC meeting and, given good results, it could also influence how the Enterprise Wireless Association 2009 program is planned.

And, if after reading this, you are thinking about deleting this e-mail, or sending it off to junk mail at least remember…we cared enough to ask you!

Thank you in advance for your time.

Your fellow Vendor,

Jim Nelson
Prism Paging

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From: Rafi Kaminer
Subject: Concluding remarks to Onset Technology discussion on your newsletter—from the CEO
Date: March 3, 2009 1:19:28 PM CST
To: Brad Dye
Cc: zack.silbinger@onsettechnology.com, vic@interconnectionservices.com

Dear Vic, Zack, Brad and all Wireless Messaging Newsletter readers –

It has been a pleasure to watch this terrific conversation about the future of paging, and I thank Vic, Zack, and Brad for facilitating this important discussion.

We are in agreement that paging is an essential tool for mission-critical enterprises. Onset Technology admires and salutes the paging industry for all it has done to revolutionize communications. It has always been Onset’s aim to expand and enhance the best of paging to better meet the ever-changing cost, reliability, and convenience requirements of large enterprises. In the current economic climate, addressing these concerns has become more important than ever.

I am pleased to report that both enterprises and the paging community have embraced our Advanced Paging solution. Advanced Paging has its genesis in customer requests for a more dynamic and cost-efficient paging solution which leverages the power of smartphones, and we’ve since learned of deep demand for our fresh take on paging. Moreover, Onset Technology has already integrated our Advanced Paging solution with leading paging companies across the country. This translates into a wider and more powerful range of available paging services than ever before and aligns perfectly with our goal of providing customers with the best communications solution for their organization.

We invite you to learn more about how Onset’s solution can expand and enhance current paging capabilities while offering greater value to customers. Please contact me with any feedback, thoughts or ideas you may have. I’m particularly interested to learn of specific paging needs and challenges facing your organization. You can reach me directly at rafi.kaminer@onsettechnology.com or (781) 916-0040.

Thank you again for this valuable exchange. Through an open discussion of our challenges, I am confident that we can rise above them with new and improved services which address a market need.

Sincerely,

Rafi Kaminer
CEO
Onset Technology
rafi.kaminer@onsettechnology.com

(781) 916-0040

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Newsletter Editor

73 DE K9IQY

Brad Dye, Editor
The Wireless Messaging Newsletter
P.O. Box 13283
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THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“If we allow the celebrity rock-star model of leadership to triumph, we will see the decline of corporations and institutions of all types. The twentieth century was a century of greatness, but we face the very real prospect that the next century will see very few enduring great institutions.”

—Jim Collins

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