EarthVision Newsletter Archive Sent: October 2nd, 1999 Subject: EarthVision Cellular Consumer News! We are back for another issue of EarthVision Cellular News. If you haven't already noticed, we are going to a biweekly distribution. We may send more often than that based on if we have what we consider late breaking news that you should know right away. ********************************************************************** MCI WORLDCOM/SPRINT MERGER MAY BE IN THE WORKS BELL ATLANTIC/VODAFONE AIRTOUCH - THE FUTURE MORE MERGERS ON THE MOVE IN CELLULAR AT&T WIRELESS CUSTOMERS FIRED UP NEC PUSHES TO ENTER FASHION MARKET "FREE" DEFINED BY MONEY OR YOUR TIME WAP PHONES ARE ABOUT TO HIT THE MARKET BIGTIME NEW STUFF COMING TO EARTHVISION CELLULAR ************************************************************************ EarthVision Cellular Consumer News Vol#1 Issue 9 _____________________________________________________ MCI WORLDCOM/SPRINT MERGER MAY BE IN THE WORKS _____________________________________________________ As we all know that WorldCom's history was to grow bigger through buying up other companies. They made a major telecom coup by the purchase of MCI. Now with they are on the move again with an even more agressive buyout. Sprint Communications is next on the list. MCI is trailing the other carriers since they do not have their own "cellular" service. Merging Sprint into the company would give the company an established cellular customer base that just keeps on growing. MCI WorldCom has already been approved by the FCC to purchase Skytel Communications Inc. The national paging carrier. Should the merger be approved by the FCC, it will give AT&T and the former MCI suitor Nextel a serious run for their money. Our research indicates that digital service is starting to surpass that of regular cellular phone users. However, analog service should still be around for a few more years to come since the digital network is still limited in it's coverage and models of phones available. [Keep in mind that there are now something over 20,000 long distance companies out there to choose from now. The merger will have it pro's and con's of course. We can only wait and see.] ________________________________________________ BELL ATLANTIC/VODAFONE AIRTOUCH - THE FUTURE ________________________________________________ Now that they are going to merge, they are looking for a single brand identity. The new business combines assets from Bell Atlantic Mobile, Airtouch Cellular, the soon to be broken up PrimeCo Personal Communications, and Airtouch Paging. Plus the cellular and PCS assets of GTE Corp. which Bell Atlantic is buying. The new company will be the largest cellular company in the nation. Giving them something like 20 million cellular phone subscribers and 3.5 million pager subscribers. They will have a coverage area of 90% of the US population with their combined networks. This means they will be established in 49 of the top 50 cellular phone markets. When the merger has been completed in the next 12 months, Bell Atlantic will hold the majority of the principal in the company with a 55% ownership. Bell Atlantic also appears to be the first Baby Bell that will be approved to enter the long distance market. The effect of this on cosumers should be very positive. With having the additional cellular coverage that should reduce the roaming fees involved with an analog service from coast to coast. The cellular phone subscriber of Bell Atlantic and Airtouch Cellular can consider themselves very lucky that this merger is taking place. Airtouch Cellular is fast becoming the #1 leader in cellular phone subscibers in the west coast. As is Bell Atlantic on the east coast. We know that Airtouch Cellular is currently picking up 41% of new cellular subscribers in Los Angeles alone. _____________________________________________ MORE MERGERS ON THE MOVE IN CELLULAR _____________________________________________ You would think with all the mergers taking place that we would see an end to them at some point. Well, we are here to tell you not to hold your breath. There are numerous mergers in the works even as we speak. They may not be highly publicized as some as noted above. But they are out there. Strange as it may seem, some companies out there are looking to buy other companies while they themselves are being wooed into a merger. It will definitely put a cramp on the style of some of the smaller cellular companies such as ours. But that is what competition is about. We may be smaller than the big shots but we aim to survive by offering our personal attention. The larger companies are merging to increase the amount of money available in the deep pockets that they have. By combining, the consumers will see a consolidation of networks and the manfacturers doing the bidding of these companies by coming out with more types of phones. A true goldmine to consumers looking for varitey and lower service pricing. In our case, we are pushing for a different market. We look to keep consumers abreast of the newest technology that is available for cellular phone products after they have purchased cellular service. Our survival startegy is to keep from being crushed by our larger competitors of course. Then to keep on going with offering our customers the cellular information content they cannot find anywhere else. And in that we offer products that most companies in our industry do not carry. We hope to have your support in our business. ________________________________________________ AT&T WIRELESS CUSTOMERS FIRED UP ________________________________________________ Not about the lack of service or busy signal when using a phone. But with the short messaging services. It appears as if AT&T attempts to provide short messaging are turning many customers off of the service. Literally. Some companies use the text messaging service to monitor computer systems to by building in computer code to notify them is a program fails. Consumers were using it to recieve messages informing them of a possible job interview. As it turned out messages were delayed by up to 3 days or missed altogether. Many customers have declined to use the service any further and this problem has made it harder on other companies that actually provide a good messaging service. Customers are demanding guarantees that cannot be given with something that may be out of the providers control. Complaints ranged from getting a customer service representative who was untrained or unable to provide an explanation to lack of responses to technical problem reports. Supposedly AT&T is now taking the problem serious now that it has had so much negative publicity regarding it's service. The service has been better recently but still has times when it can be down for an entire week at a time. One customer went so far as to say that he felt that there was a double standard regarding the quality of a phone and customer service in the wireless industry. Meaning that you could get a good quality phone but the customer service available is terrible for the industry. [ We are very pleased to note that EarthVision Cellular gets high scores on both counts.] ______________________________________________ NEC PUSHES TO ENTER FASHION PHONE MARKET ______________________________________________ Some of you may know that NEC used to make some fairly ugly phones such as the 800 series phone. Which basically amounted to a dull black rectagular phone with a flimsy antennae. A well manufacturered phone but it was just plain old ugly. NEC is attempting to recreate the ugly ducking into the beautiful swan story. NEC has been trying to establish itself in the US market as it has done in Europe and Japan without success. NEC will soon be coming out with Tri-mode, Dual Mode, and even CDMA phones in an effort to get consumers attention. Two of those phones will be the 2600 and 2200 of the Digtial Talk NEX Series. They look like the new Nokia 8800 series phone. Both models weigh about half of other NEC handsets tipping the scale at a mere 4.7 ounces each. Industry analysts seem to think that NEC is outmatched and will not make it into the market once again. However, that is for the consumers to decide and not the academia industry analysts. It appears as if NEC is attempting to negotiate a deal to supply AT&T with these phones. [We would tell you to forget the analysts predictions and take a look at these phones for yourself. These phones are definitely a step up for NEC and look quite refreshing compared to what they have been offering. They seem to have other models they will be offering down the line depending on if they get into the US market. We give them a thumbs up.] ____________________________________________ "FREE" DEFINED BY MONEY OR YOUR TIME ____________________________________________ We hear offers of free wireless service all the time. But the real question is if it is really free. Technically, if you mean is it free in regards to your spending money. The answer is yes, no money will come out of your pocket. But is it free in regards to your time. The answer is no. The definition of "free" really depends on how much you value your time. Let us look at the "free paging service" as an example. There is a company called DSI Technology Inc. that is banking on the fact that customers are willing to give up their time to read advertising before getting to their messages. They will be offering a free pager and service to folks who don't mind having to scroll through advertisements to read their messages. They expect to have about 30,000 to 40,000 subscribers on their network by Next Month. Although it is a free service, you will have to put some money out of pocket as a deposit of course. And with each page the customer recieves they will get advertisements. So if it is being used on a personal level it may not be so bad. But from a business perspective, using this service may be quite annoying especially if you get a lot of pages. Then again, they are pushing for the consumer market anyhow. So they may just get the subscribers they need to make it a reality. [In our opinion, pagers and pager service is so cheap that we cannot really offer a true opinion. It will boil down to what you as a consumer think works best for you.] ___________________________________________________ WAP PHONES ARE ABOUT TO HIT THE MARKET BIGTIME ___________________________________________________ WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol. Not "web access possible" or some other definition. We have been asked many times what this meant so we decided to define it here so that you can tell others that may be scratching their head wondering what it means. We have had some very strange thoughts on what it meant including "Whack A Person" and "What A Payload". Qualcomm is already pushing out a WAP phone. Nokia is pushing the Nokia 7100 series WAP phone which has a built in micro browser. It will also have this cool Navi-roller which is a rolling type button that allows you to scroll faster through the message on your LCD display. If you don't already know about WAP phones or just want more information on them, then stay tuned to this newsletter. As we get more information on them, we will be posting it right here in this newsletter. Many companies out there will be offering them but the information available is somewhat limited as to what they will be able to do. We can expect to see them advance to a point that you will be able to do fantastic stuff such as videoconferencing, intense graphics, real time road maps and much more. When that happens will be anybody's guess. [We would recommend that if you look to buy a WAP phone, wait a few months until after it has been introduced to the market on a full scale. You will have to pay a much lower price and newer features will be available by then.] COOL SITE OF THE MONTH: If you like historical romance novels this is the place to visit. A book site that caters to the unique market of this type. Some of them have been professional published and some of them are self published books avialable to the public through this website. [We are a bit biased since they are also a supporter of EarthVision Cellular products. But we thought that historical romance novels were a bit unique especially since some of them are self published. We don't read them so we cannot give you an opinion on the content on these types of books.] _____________________________________________ NEW STUFF COMING TO EARTHVISION CELLULAR _____________________________________________ We have some very exciting news about EarthVision Cellular. We are always looking for new specialty products that we do not already offer. Well, here are a couple of more products we are looking to add to our product line. The Zinc Air Disposable Battery. Manufactured by a company in Israel. Why do you ask would you want a disposable battery. Number 1 is because it is enviromentally friendly and biodegradeable. Secondly is if you have ever tried to go camping or hiking in a state park, you will find that electrical outlets just aren't attached to the trees. These batteries will be precharged and will allow for a standby time of up to 6 full days. Or if you needed one for emergencies or business travel purposes, you throw it on and Presto! you have a working phone without having to wait for a charge. This works great if for example you are up in a tree with a bear down below. And you get on the phone to the park ranger to tell them you are in danger and need some help. "Hello Mr. Park Ranger. I am up in a tree and this big bear just ate my shoe as an appetizer." "Oh boy! Describe to me where you are located." "Well, I took a left turn about a mile off of the path marked by the..." [Battery goes dead.] "Hello? Hello?" [That is a true story. The fellow later said that he thanked God for having smelly feet. Apparently, he actually did lose a shoe and he slipped and hit the bear straight in the nose with his foot. The bear turned and ran.] We are also looking at adding a FM Radio portable hands free kit. You plug the hands free kit into the phone and car adapter as usual. Except in this case, you turn on your radio and tune a device on the hands free kit to the same frequency and your radio becomes your speaker kit. Now for the specials that we all have been waiting for! OEM Style Rapid Wall Charger: Only $19.95 Prepaid Cellular Phones: All packages now come with a free leather case. Our executive package also includes a rapid car charger. Excellent gifts that allow for anyone to use prepaid cellular service even if they have to travel. They are not restricted to local use as most prepaid cellular phones require. The feedback from our customers give us high marks for quality of product/service and our customer service with this product. All leather cases: Only $9.95 each Uniden FRS 1200 2 Way Radios: Family Radio Service Sport Radio with up to a 2 mile range, two way conversation, 30 hours of operation time, and a 1/2 watt output power. Great for family outings, golfing, and much more. Now is the time to get those perfect gifts. Hurry as this is a very limited time offer. Only $64.95 each. That does it for our current specials this month. We hope that you will be able to take advantage of them. Other products being added to our existing product lines. We will be adding the following models to our handsfree kits. Nextel i600/i370 Qualcomm 2700 Sony 1201/3200 Samsung SCH1000 Nokia 6190 We have also added more batteries to our selection. In it we have included batteries for the more obsolete phones. So don't despair if you are having trouble finding a battery for a phone that has been discontiued. Check our list as we may have what you are looking for. A Special Note: Please keep in mind that in the cellular industry that product lines change. If we have something listed, it may have been discontinued without notice being given to us. If this happens, we will correct the website as soon as we find out and work with you to find a suitable replacement for the product you are seeking. This would happen in rare cases but it will happen. Please understand that it is completely out of our control since manufacturers do not always inform customers of what has been discontinued and when it was done. We will be actively asking for your support of our newsletter. Please tell a friend about our newsletter or just send a copy to someone you know asking them if they would like to sign up. To sign up for this newsletter just go to www.earthvisioncellular.com and look for the newsletter graphic on the left side of the page. Your support will be appreciated. Want us to make you famous? Okay, not really famous but you could let everyone know that you have something to say. Would you like to see your comments about our newsletter in the next issue? Send us your comments that you would like published to earthvisioncellular@earthvisioncellular.com We reserve the right not to publish comments, restrict the number of comments in our newsletter, or edit comments for suitability of our readers. We look forward to hearing about what you think about our newsletter, our website, or anything else related to the cellular industry. Think we should asd something to our newsletter like jokes, quotes, or something else? Let us know what you think. We will have a new line in our newsletter called "Consumer Comments" in each issue from this point on. Please note if you would like to be kept anonymous. Please put newsletter comment in the subject line. Back