EarthVision Newsletter Archive Sent: January 7, 2000 Subject: EarthVision Cellular Consumer News Another issue of the EarthVision Cellular Consumer Newsletter. This newsletter is for the soon to be educated cellular phone user community. If you know of anyone else that may have an interest in our newsletter, make sure to forward them a copy. Now we move forward at Mach II speed! ****************************************************************************************** NEW PRODUCTS COMING TO EARTHVISION CELLULAR SPRINT PCS PUSHES TO PROVIDE MORE COVERAGE CELL PHONE USE BANNED IN ANOTHER CITY CELLULAR PHONES AND RAT STUDIES DISPOSABLE CELLULAR PHONE - CHEAP AND REAL CHEAP SPRINT PCS HOME PHONE - TAKE IT WITH YOU ****************************************************************************************** EarthVision Cellular Consumer News Issue #1 Volume 2 ___________________________________________________________________ HAPPY NEW YEAR! Our very first issue for the new year. We hope you enjoy it. ___________________________________________________________________ NEW PRODUCTS COMING TO EARTHVISION CELLULAR ____________________________________________________________________ We couldn't have you getting bored with coming to our site and finding nothing new. So we decided to add a couple of more items to our product lines. First off, allow for a quick note that we are in fact offering the Samsung 3500 accessories. We will be updating our website within a week or so with this information. On to the good stuff. We will be offering gift certificates shortly to our customers. You will be able to enter the denomination of the gift certificate. When you go to purchase the gift certificate, simply type in the amount that you want the certificate denomination to be and it will be done. However, we do have a minimum of $20 for a gift certificate denomination. And you can then select if you want it to be emailed to someone and enter the email address of the individual that you want to email a notice of the gift certificate. And no graphics will be emailed since we know that it can be annoying for some. Instead, we will send them a nice message stating who sent them a gift certificate with the certicate number and value amount. And if you want to add a personal note, just enter it into the comments field when ordering. In addition, for those of you who are looking for novelty telephones. Well they are coming to you very soon. We will be adding a Star Trek Enterprise Phone (Yes, it looks just like it), for the sports fans, we will have the football helmets, as well as Star Wars, Harley Davidson Phone, Locomotive, M&M characters, Snoopy, Mickey Mouse, Garfield, Elvis replica (plays "Hound Dog"), and many more. We will put up a page that features the various novelty telephones that we will have to available for ordering. We are expanding pretty fast, so keep checking our site often for updates that may have taken place in between these newsletters. You never know what you may find. Don't forget to sign up for our bonus program if you haven't already. The bonus program offers free products as our way of saying thank you for your patronage. We are pleased to announce that effective immediately, we have gone international with our website. Shipping international orders will be offered with the same easy process as it is for our customers in the US and Canada. ________________________________________________________________ SPRINT PCS PUSHES TO PROVIDE MORE COVERAGE _________________________________________________________________ Well there are newsgroups and even a website that is devoted to complaints about Sprint PCS service. And they are listening. (At least we think they are.) Sprint PCS is turning to it's affiliates to help them build out the network towers needed to be a truly nationwide digital service. Digital service can be quite a bit more costly for carriers since digital towers must be located closer together and many more of them are needed to provide adequate coverage in a service area. The affiliates of Sprint PCS are doing something of a trade off. In exchange for the affiliates builiding out the networks, the billing will be done by Sprint PCS and the affiliate companies keep a majority of the billing with Sprint PCS taking a percentage of the revenue. One affiliate has provided coverage from Atlanta, GA to Charlotte, NC in the name of Sprint PCS digital service along the highways. The highways are the most difficult for Sprint PCS to develop due to the costs of expansion mentioned above. With the carrier opening it's arms to the affiliates, subscribers of Sprint PCS may find themselves with much larger coverage than in the past. _________________________________________________________________ CELL PHONE USE BANNED IN ANOTHER CITY _________________________________________________________________ The law was enacted in a community right outside of Philadelphia. Hilltop Township, Pennsylvania. The reason for the law being passed there is very tragic though. The death of a 2 year old child was caused by an inattentive driver in November. The child suffered severe head injuries when a driver was trying to dial his cellular phone and ran a stop light. The ban is in effect unless the driver is using a hands free device or making an emergency call. Otherwise, you will not want to be caught in this community using a cellular phone. We do not post this article to be morbid. Rather to encourage all of our readers to be responsible when using a cellular phone. The investment into a hands free device is small compared to the lives of others that may be affected by our actions. Please keep that in mind. The Nebraska state legislature currently has a bill up for review. Implementing what is called "rebuttable presumption" of negligence into the bill should it become law. Drivers who are talking on cellular phones are involved in traffic accidents would have an extra legal burden to bear should they be sued. Drivers would bear the burden of proving that they did not contribute to an accident due to using a cellular phone while driving. _________________________________________________________________ CELLULAR PHONES AND RAT STUDIES _________________________________________________________________ OOF! Looks like it is Lycos and CBS that are getting the bad rap this time. We all heard about the story of a student who performed testing on rats that simulated cellular phones. And the media was all over it like the plague to announce the hazards of cellular phone use due to the recent study on rats. It was something to the effect that they were of the infotainment league with rat factoids being presented. As well as being irresponsible of them to suggest rat behavior compares to human behavior. It is a given that early research is usually performed on rats. However, it is also a given that a test performed on a rat may not have the same effect on a human. The FDA once put a limit on Sweet N Low because it showed that it could cause cancer in rats if given in large doses. On the other hand, it remained on the market since the FDA agreed that it didn't directly cause cancer in humans. A recent study in the UK which used human volunteers pulsed actual microwaves into the ears of the subjects and found that they could recall words and pictures just as easily as the control group. The results of the testing showed nothing of memory loss. To our surprise, we even learned that testing is being conducted on worms and even mannequins! How those types of tests will apply to humans is beyond our humble understanding capabilities. As we understand it, everyone who is able is taking advantage of the hype and hoping to drag it out for as long as possible to get that :"15 Minutes" of fame. We can expect even more to jump on the bandwagon. Here are the recent test results of a study that we conducted: CELLULAR PHONES CAN CAUSE ACUTE HEADACHES! Especially if you bang one on your forehead in a repeated fashion. We found the same effect with using both a digital phone and an analog phone. Nor did having the antennae up or down have any effect on skewing the results in our favor. And yes, we had it independently confirmed. Every one who confirmed our results stated that they had a severe headache and took us up on our offer of aspirin and a glass of water. Maybe we can get CBS to do a story on the prime time television slot. In fact, we may even do a press release on our study results. ________________________________________________________________ DISPOSABLE CELLULAR PHONE - CHEAP AND REAL CHEAP _________________________________________________________________ In the next 6 months you may find these disposable cellular phones being offered by such places as McDonalds, 7/11 stores, World Wrestling Federation, or you local car wash business. The phone will be completely recycleable and will probably come with a rebate of $2 or $3 for returning the used item. Now when you walk up to buy a pepsi or candy bar, buy a cellular phone while you are at it. They are not being built for durability with a limited life cycle in mind. The current thought process is that the phones will be cheap, and will come with a 6 volt battery that will allow for about an hour of talk time before it goes kaput. It will be super thin and very lightweight with being made out of cardboard or paper for the exterior. With the number crunch going on for cellular phones, these phones will be for outbound calls only. And durability of the phone is not a factor. They are disposable so the inventor is looking for the cheapest form of manufacturing to offer this product for the lowest price. Current suggestions tossed around were 60 minutes of local airtime for $19.99 per phone. The inventor of these phones, a former toy designer has specifically stated that business professionals are not the target nor will they be targeted. Rather kids, moms, students, and the casual user will be the target market. A prominent research firm thinks that these phones will actually become a hit and definitely have a market. Traditional cellular phone users will probably not find this product to be cost effective in the long run. But it is a novel idea. And the name of this new phone? Toss A Phone. Coming soon to a vendor near you. [Okay, cut us a break. Yes, we report on some of the more unusual items that may be coming to the market. But if we didn't tell you about it, where else would you find out about them?] ________________________________________________________________ SPRINT PCS HOME PHONE - TAKE IT WITH YOU _________________________________________________________________ We reported in a previous issue of our newsletter about a company that was designing a phone that was transportable and allowed you to connect your phone to traditional land line services. It wasn't a cellular phone but an actual mobile landline phone. Sprint decided to add a twist and break into this market. They rolled out the Sprint Home Phone targeted to residential customers. Before we go to far. The only advantage that we can see to this service is that your phone number will travel with you no matter where you go. It basically eliminates the need to continuously change your phone number when moving to another area of the state and/or country with the local phone company. Basically, here is what is being offered. These are pseudo cellular phones operating at the 1900 MHz level and plug into an electrical outlet. The three phones that are being offered in the test area are the Qualcomm 1200 CDMA digital one line phone and includes a corded handset. The remaining phones are the Qualcomm 6200 and the Motorola WILL 1900SC both which will allow the user to plug the Sprint At Home Phone into a cordless or corded phone that they may already own. The current test subscribers are given options on the service. The Basic Plan is $29.99 per month. Long distance charges are separate and will cost 10 cents a minute. Voice mail can be added for $4.99 a month. Three way calling, call forwarding, and caller ID also cost extra. The Expanded Basic Plan will offer voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting, and three way calling into the package with 240 minutes of long distance calls for $54.99 per month. Caller ID will cost extra with this package. The last package is the Premium Plan which will offer all of the features mentioned above and 750 minutes of long distance calls a month for $99.99 a month. And no the phone will not work in your car. You can only use it with an electrical outlet. PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND ASSOCIATES ABOUT OUR NEWSLETTER. WE APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT AND ASSISTANCE IN MAKING OUR NEWSLETTER A SUCCESS. If you want your name to vanish from our list because our newsletter is just too boring or someone else signed you up, let us know. We will reluctantly take you off of our newsletter list. And we still reserve the right to make faces at you when you aren't looking. Go to www.earthvisioncellular.com/newsletter to take your name off or to add your name to our newsletter. EarthVision Communications Inc. "Taking Cellular to Mach II Speed" www.earthvisioncellular.com Back