EarthVision Newsletter Archive
Back to Archive Home PageSent: Wednesday, November 22, 2000
Subject: EarthVision Cellular Consumer News! Issue #23 Vol. 2Another 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!
[Note: This newsletter is delivered Bi Weekly on Wednesday.]
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FIND A PHONE, SELL A PHONE, AND LEARN AN EXPENSIVE LESSON
DISPOSABLE PREPAID CELLULAR PHONES - REVISITED
WAY BACK WHEN WITH THE HISTORY OF CELL PHONE GROWTH
UP, UP, UP AND AWAY OR JUST MOVING ALONG AT A STEADY PACE
ZING WIRELESS SEEKS AN INTERVIEW BECAUSE OF OUR BIASED ARTICLE
CELL PHONE BATTERY RECONDITIONING SERVICE COMING SOON
PHONE TAX REPEAL DEAD IN THE WATER THANKS TO VETO
ANOTHER COOL BATTERY CHARGING DEVICE IN THE WORKS
EARTHVISION CELLULAR NEWS VIA WIRELESS WEB
NOW CARRIERS ARE GETTING ON THE CELL PHONE ETIQUETTE WAGON
A FREEBIE TO ALL OF OUR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS!
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EarthVision Cellular Consumer News Digest Issue # 23 Volume 2
FIND A PHONE, SELL A PHONE, AND LEARN AN EXPENSIVE LESSON
Ignorance of the law is no excuse as they say. Here in Nebraska, a young lady found a fully functional cell phone lying on the sidewalk. Out of the generosity of her heart, she decided to sell it to someone for $40 because they needed one.
That is where it went downhill from there. The person she sold it to got suspicious that the phone was purchased so cheap and went to a Cellular One retail store to find out if there was something fishy about it. There was, and it isn't called finders keepers either.
The problem was that the woman made no attempt to contact the original owner of the phone to tell them she had found it. Her defense in court was that the law violated her constitutional rights because it was too vague in explaining her responsibilities in possessing an item she found but didn't own. I will have to remember that the next time I bump into a bank robber and pick up the bag of money he dropped.
The cell phone user got their phone back, and the young lady who found the phone learned a very expensive lesson. The lesson was that crime really does pay. She ended up paying restitution, attorney fees, and a fine that came out to be about $1000. She also has to perform 50 hours of community service. And we all lived happily ever after.
Aside from that, we have something else to share. We have seen an increase in online fraud orders on our site. It isn't funny but we have to snicker at the stupidity of these people. Our website states very clearly that they will be busted. After we notify the local police of felony fraud, we send the wannabe criminal a nice email about a week later stating that we hope they enjoy their stay in the luxury accommodations arranged by EarthVision Cellular. Then they have the audacity not to even send us a thank you note. How ungrateful can they be?
DISPOSABLE PREPAID CELLULAR PHONES - REVISITED
We learned some more about these products and a surprise too. As we mentioned, this product is being promoted as an MLM scheme by a fairly unknown company in Florida. The phones are supposedly being manufactured by Motorola. The carrier for the service will be AT&T digital wireless? AT&T wireless must be really desperate to participate in an MLM program.
About every 3 or 4 months, we get someone contacting us about this program attempting to get us involved. They must not have read our newsletter archive very well. This one who contacted us was the most persistent of them all. Telling us that we had better take advantage of this program because our competitors are going to be all over it.
Has anyone searched the internet for this product? Our competitors are running for it so fast that you can't find a single one of them offering it as a product line. Nor can you find an official corporate website by the company who is supposedly providing the product.
We remain the skeptic because we have no other choice. The way this whole thing is being presented leaves too many questions unanswered and it just seems much too odd. Where are the press releases, websites, and other pertinent info that would go along with such a "breakthrough" product?
It has been like pulling teeth to get anything out of these people who are supposedly on the inside of this program. We were told that this unknown company also has an exclusive on this product and its distribution. From what we know about both Motorola and AT&T wireless it just doesn't make sense. Why would they award an exclusive to a minor player rather than a company that has the financial backing and PR power to really promote the product through standard distribution channels?
Each time we tell them that we would not have an interest in getting involved. We will keep you posted on if we find someone who appears to have a legitimate marketing plan for distributing this product to the public. Until then we won't find it being offered by our company.
WAY BACK WHEN WITH THE HISTORY OF CELL PHONE GROWTH
Where were we when cell phone service had been available for 10 years. There were only 19 million people with cell phones compared to 104 million today. Here is a breakdown of the number of cell phone subscribers for the last five years.
1984 -- 2 Million
1994 -- 19 Million
1995 -- 28 Million
1996 -- 38 Million
1997 -- 48 Million
1998 -- 60 Million
1999 -- 76 MillionThe year 2000 shows the highest increase of cellular phone subscribers so far in one year since 1994. About 38% of the US population now uses a cell phone. The current trend shows that the US population is being penetrated at a rate of around 20 million people per year.
We aren't spending that much time on the phone with averaging only 4 hours a month. People using digital service have taken a small lead over analog subscribers. Part of the reason for that is that some carriers are switching over to offering only digital service. Even though digital service is supposedly cheaper, we are still spending about $45 a month on average for service. Inching up over the past three years by about $3 to $5 a month. That comes out to about 3 to 5 billion dollars more every month in additional revenue for carriers.
Let us hope that the carriers will begin to use this additional revenue to improve the coverage area for digital service. Their claims to "nationwide" coast to coast service is something of a joke as it is now. Some of them have no coverage at all from west of the Mississippi River until you hit California. Those that may have coverage in that area have a very limited amount.
UP, UP, UP AND AWAY OR JUST MOVING ALONG AT A STEADY PACEWe just learned about a solid and established company here in Omaha that spent a whopping 4 million dollars to build an online presence that generated $66,000 in revenue. We can't say that we have spent anywhere close to that amount just to build our online presence and even if we did we wouldn't admit that we made such a paltry return on our investment.
Our company falls into the second category of just moving along at a steady pace. It looks like AT&T wireless and Verizon are looking to compete in the prepaid cell phone business. We can't say that we are overly concerned about it though. It is digital service we are talking about here that is being offered by the two of them.
Something else we have been considering is doing 3D images of our products. We haven't gotten that far yet to date only because we don't know how our visitors would respond to it. The main reason for that is because for you to view the images, you would have to download a viewer type program. Let us know if you would be interested in our offering 3D images. Oh yes, Holograms for the LCD screens of phones is coming soon. We will run a special on them to help introduce them when we have them available.
To keep us moving along are the media networks too. Those of you who live in Philadelphia probably saw us on the NBC News network about two weeks ago. The day after that we had a Telecom company located in Minnesota ask for permission to write about us in their company newsletter. All this attention we have been getting and we haven't even signed the dotted line with the PR firm yet.
We have all of you to thank in part for our getting to where we are now. As far as we are concerned, our subscribers, visitors, and customers rule the wireless world. Our newsletter appears to be a hit too. It just keeps growing thanks to all of you loyal subscribers. It looks like we may have to switch to an automated list server already. In fact, I haven't seen a single request for a removal from out list in at least 6 months if not more.
This Thanksgiving is going to be the best one yet for us as a company. (We will take great pleasure if we can say that every year.) With the numerous failures of the dotcom's and other offline companies trying to establish an online presence we are still plugging along. Once the PR firm gets involved things should really get interesting for us and for you too.
ZING WIRELESS SEEKS AN INTERVIEW BECAUSE OF OUR BIASED ARTICLE
We wrote about this company offering wireless web phone advertising services in our October 4th, 2000 newsletter. It looks like they didn't like what we had to say and they made sure to let us know it. Below is what they sent to us in reference to the article without any editing on our part.
I represent goZing.com who you guys have been quick to judge on your newsletters. We would appreciate an interview with us to ask us these questions directly rather than spout out to your audience about opinions that show little research on your part.
We stand accused of being biased, quick to judge, of not doing our homework, and of spouting opinions. It was decided that it is in the interest of our readers to set up an interview with Zing Wireless and let them say their piece. It is only fair that Zing Wireless is allowed to tell their side of the story.
It will be up to our readers to decide on how accurate our article may have been. To make sure we give them every opportunity to put their best foot forward, we are going to offer them the questions via email. It will give them a chance to really look at their responses and revise them until they are satisfied with what they will be giving to us.
In our defense we can say this much. We do not make things up in any of our articles that are written about various companies. When we give an opinion, we give the reasons for our drawing those conclusions. That is done to allow any interested party to dispute our findings as is being done here by Zing Wireless. We also believe that it gives our readers a chance to form their own opinions.
CELL PHONE BATTERY RECONDITIONING SERVICE COMING SOON
We are looking at purchasing some equipment that will allow us to provide a new service: Cellular phone battery reconditioning. Many of our customers come to us seeking hard to find batteries for phones that may be obsolete, or they are unable to locate the batteries from a local store.
To help with those times when we too are unable to locate the necessary battery (which is rare), we will be able to recondition the batteries instead. Our service will be open to anyone looking to recondition their cell phone battery.
If it is found that the battery is beyond any assistance we can offer, we will give it a proper funeral and ensure that it is safely recycled. We hope to have this service available as early as March 2001. Part of the delay is that we have to decide what equipment we need and finding this type of equipment is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
We found a company who can provide the equipment but it is imported so we will have a bit of a delay once we have ordered it until the time that we actually have it in our facilities. We have no idea if anyone will need such a service but we thought we had better provide it just in case.
PHONE TAX REPEAL DEAD IN THE WATER THANKS TO VETO
Politics can be annoying at times. Even carriers want the tax repealed but it didn't make it this time because of a veto by President Clinton. The phone tax repeal act enjoyed support from both the Republican and Democrat parties with 420 votes in favor. Only two congressmen opposed the repeal. In fact, the bill was sponsored by a democrat and a republican.
The senate made an effort to get it passed this year and attached it to a spending bill sent to the President on October 12th. The President then vetoed it ,stating that it was irrelevant to spending. This unnecessary tax pulls in 5 billion dollars a year for Uncle Sam.
Part of the reason for the veto was due to a tiff between President Clinton and Congress. The problem began when Congress put in for a pay raise and Clinton didn't get the desired funding for a project on the bill sent to him which included the tax repeal act. The President retaliated by putting a veto on the bill.
In case some of our new subscribers missed it. This tax was originally imposed to fund the Spanish-American War. The tax was enacted in 1898, and Americans have been paying for this war for over 100 years now. In 1990 it became a permanent tax for the American consumer thanks to the Congress at the time.
If the children born in 2000 are lucky enough, they may see this tax repealed before they are eligible to receive social security. Maybe the next President will decide to work a little more closely with our new Congress and get this tax repealed.
ANOTHER COOL BATTERY CHARGING DEVICE IN THE WORKS
A cell phone holster that will continuously power a phone? Looks like it may become a reality. A company has created a holster that powered a Nokia 6190 phone for a full month. They are also working on one for the Motorola Star Tac Phone. It was said that the holsters can be adapted to fit any model cell phone.
The holster has extremely thin plastic sheets that convert air and a mixture of methanol and water held in disposable containers. This creates the electricity needed to charge the cell phone battery. Only the fuel cartridges need to be replaced.
We should see these items available within the next two years or so. It is unknown whether they will partner with the manufacturers or go straight to the distributors of cellular phones. If they do partner with a manufacturer it will be either Nokia or Motorola.
The cost of the holster or the Micro Cell Fuel cartridges has yet to be determined. This technology is still in the design stage; however, the prototype available already is a very good sign for consumers who are looking forward to using 3G wireless data and streaming video services.
EARTHVISION CELLULAR NEWS VIA WIRELESS WEB
We had to do it "before our competitors did". We are looking at setting up with a service to broadcast individual pieces of news items to those of our subscribers who want to get updates via their wireless web phones. It will also allow us to send our special offers out to our subscribers on a real time basis.
We should have it set up some time next month if we decide to move forward with this service. We certainly couldn't let Amazon have all the fun and glory of being able to broadcast on the wireless web network.
This isn't the generic news and weather reports that some people subscribe too. This will be information that we will create and enter into each customized message to go out to our subscribers. We still have to determine the frequency of when we will send out the news updates.
As a wireless phone company it just doesn't look right that we wouldn't be doing it. Plus we hope that it, too, will become a good learning experience for us. This is kind of cool though. We can now post events in our newsletters and then inform you in real time when we have issued our next newsletter with the update that we know you are just dying to read as soon as it hits the electronic light waves.
Admit it. You sit on the edge of your seat checking your email on a daily basis just waiting for this newsletter to arrive. We hope that this will help relieve some of that tension. If you don't sit on the edge of your seat waiting for it to arrive then please, don't tell us. We don't want to know the truth that bad.
If any of you decide to use the service, we would appreciate your feedback on it. Cut us a little leeway if we make mistakes because we will be new to this type of medium. We sincerely hope that it will prove to be a service that you will come to appreciate. As always we will do our best to keep it entertaining.
NOW CARRIERS ARE GETTING ON THE CELL PHONE ETIQUETTE WAGON
How long have we been preaching cell phone etiquette? At least for a full year and a half now is a good estimate. Guess who just decided to jump on the bandwagon. US Cellular out of Chicago. They are now doing a campaign on cellular phone etiquette. We would like to take credit for them being so responsive to this controversial issue but we cannot.
What got them started was a situation that ended up getting three people thrown into jail. Contempt of court was the reason for the citation. A judge had a sign posted that said all cell phones and pagers were to be off while court was in session. These unlucky individuals failed to observe the rule and ended up in the tank when their cell phones started ringing.
Of course the individuals who landed behind bars were a bit outspoken about it and US Cellular decided to capitalize on the situation. Switching to the other side of the argument, at least they are now publicly putting out the message on cellular phone etiquette. Better late than never.
Depending on how much publicity it nets them, we would expect more carriers to follow suit. We would be very pleased to see those companies that have more of an immediate influence on the public get moving with more campaigns of this type.
We aren't saying that cell phone users are rude in general even if they are. (Just kidding so don't send us any mail bombs. We have temporarily removed our mailing address just in case.) We are only saying that it is only proper that those of us who are promoting the use of wireless services take responsibility for how we influence society as a whole. As wireless companies, we do have an obligation to the public whether we want to recognize it or not.
A FREEBIE TO ALL OF OUR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS!
It's called advice. Look both ways before you cross the street.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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. 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.