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The Wireless Outpost Newsletter Issue #12 Vol. 3
Wednesday, July 18, 2001
Another issue of the
Wireless Outpost 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.]
TRACFONE
CUSTOMERS READ AND BE ADVISED - IMPORTANT NOTICE
We have been informed that carriers have told
Tracfone that they will no longer activate new analog
phones as of September. Existing customers may be
affected if you fail to keep your airtime cycles valid.
If you are a Tracfone customer read this notice in its
entirety.
Carriers have informed Tracfone that they will now
only activate digital phones come September of 2001. If
you are an existing customer, your analog phone will be
a paperweight should you fail to activate airtime
within the required airtime cycle which is generally 60
days.
Our understanding is that if your phone becomes
inactivated because you didn't activate airtime per the
60 day policy then the burden will be on you to
purchase a new digital phone with Tracfone service. We
don't know how strongly this will be enforced but we do
not anticipate any mercy. We would not recommend that
you test the boundaries on this one.
First, make a calendar of when you need to have your
airtime activated so you do not miss out on the renewal
date. If your phone is inactivated, the carriers will
not reactivate your analog phone. This means that you
will have to pay full price for a new
"digital" phone which is going to cost more
than a standard analog phone.
The other option you have is to purchase the annual
airtime card. It will save you the hassle of having to
keep track of when airtime should be activated. You can
purchase these cards from us at a discount of $97.00
per card (EVC Price) or from a local retailer at $100
per card.
This notice gives you about a month and a half,
possibly two months before you will be directly
impacted by this change. The changeover is going to
have a major impact on distributors of these phones for
approximately 4 months. That means that many of us
won't be able to secure them for direct sales.
We are in the process of securing alternate sources
of prepaid cellular phones and services. We purchase
our inventory directly which will give us a priority
over many of our competitors. The advantage being that
we will probably have inventory available before most
can hope to even see it as being a part of their
product offerings.
Our intention is to continue offering the airtime
cards and accessories for the analog phones offered by
Tracfone. If you haven't already noticed, we added the
accessories for all analog phones that have been
offered to Tracfone customers. By the way, this will
have an impact on our accessory inventory for the Nokia
252. Meaning that we will have excess inventory that we
will have to move. We expect to do a clearance sale on
the accessories. We will announce that in a separate
email to our subscribers.
However, if you are an existing Tracfone customer
and want to keep your service, then make sure to heed
our warning. If you know of others who are a Tracfone
customer then you should be neighborly and forward a
copy of this newsletter to them so they can site the
source of this information.
NEW YORK STATE POLITICIANS JUMPING THE
GUN ON CELL PHONE BAN?
Politicians are notorious for their campaign
gimmicks. The ban on cell phones in New York State
appears to be one of those. Why do we think that? Take
a look at a study on cell phone driver distraction and
where it ranks in distractions to drivers.
Top Causes of more than 32,000 traffic accidents
analyzed by the UNC:
Specific Distraction/Percent of Distracted Drivers
Outside object, person, event: 29.4%
Adjusting radio, cassette, CD 11.4%
Other occupant in vehicle 10.9%
Moving object in vehicle 4.3%
Other device/object brought into vehicle
2.9%
Adjusting vehicle/climate controls 2.8%
Eating or drinking 1.7%
Using/dialing cell phone 1.5% ****
Smoking related 0.9%
Other distractions 25.6%
Unknown distraction 8.6%
TOTAL 100.0 %
At 1.5% of all causes of cell phone distraction, you
have to really wonder about the motive. Maybe to get
some good PR with the voters of New York and the rest
of the country? Being in the spotlight is a powerful
drug to politicians.
One good thing that New York State did was to add
email to their do not call lists though. That includes
sending unsolicited email to wireless devices and
cellular phones. Sending an unsolicited email could
cost the spammer a $2000 fine per incident. Ouch!
We have been working on it although it isn't quite
ready when we said it would be. We have big plans for
the website which should be fun. How does having a
Mayor of CPN sound?
The Mayor will be the one who will answer general
questions for the visitors to the CPN site. We will
have a button on the website that says "Mayor's
Office".
Questions, suggestions, and complaints can be sent
to the Mayor's office. There will be four email
addresses available to our visitors.
The Mayor's Office:
The Mayor supervises the overall function the CPN
Webcity. You can send general inquiries, suggestions,
comments, and even complaints about our webcity to this
office. The Mayor is a busy person so allow for a
couple of days for a response to be sent back to you.
City Planner:
The city planner is responsible for the technical
details of CPN. If you have questions, find a broken
link, or experience any technical difficulties, you can
send your email here.
Sales Ambassador:
Looking for a key to the Great CPN Webcity? This is the
place to contact. The Mayor would probably end up
giving away the key to the webcity for a nickel so we
opened the Ambassador's position instead. We only
accept button ads which are offered on a monthly basis.
CPN Editor:
All other inquires regarding publishing, content, and
anything else not covered in the above should be sent
here. The editor loves to hear about new stories,
suggestions, and comments that you may have to offer.
We were kind of wondering if and when something like
this may happen. Freedom Wireless has filed for their
second patent on prepaid cellular technology. They have
sued some of the bigger name wireless carriers for
infringement on those patents.
The crux of it is that Freedom claims that they
developed the necessary technology to allow for
customers to prepay for service rather than paying at
the end of each month. Freedom claims that because they
developed these technologies that they are owed
royalties from wireless carriers using this type of
technology.
The lawsuit has named Verizon, Cingular, AT&T
Wireless, Cellular One in SF, Western Wireless, and
Boston Communications Group. A total of 400 companies
were sent letters by Freedom informing them that they
are infringing on a patent.
BCG stated that they felt the patent was invalid and
unenforceable. They have stated that they have
identified hundreds of pieces to their technology that
predates the patent filed by Freedom Wireless. Based on
our own experience, we would have to say that BCG may
have a valid case there.
The lawsuit was filed in Dec 2000 and should go
before the courts in October 2001. That should be very
interesting to see the end result. If Freedom Wireless
wins then that may change how prepaid cellular phone
services are being offered by many carriers.
The best part is that BCG has offered a $60,000
reward for any information that will Freedom's patents
to be tossed out as invalid. If anyone has some time on
their hands and is looking to make $60K for their time,
you should look into it and make a comparison of the
patent against existing technologies prior to Freedom's
patent.
CELL PHONE SHOPPING
SERVICE TAKES A PLUNGE INTO DARKNESS
Shopping online with your cellular phone spells very
bad news for those companies who were hoping to make a
go of it as a business model. A recent study done by
Cambridge University's Judge Institute showed consumers
are significantly less like to use a cell phone to make
purchases.
At one point it was as high as 34% last year here in
the US as those being potentially interested. This year
it has fallen off a cliff to only 3% of US consumers
may be interested. This survey was conducted in Japan,
Europe, and the US for a total of eight countries.
Overall, interest was at 32% last year by
respondents in last year's survey. It has dropped to a
dramatic 12% this year. The survey seems to suggest
that the woes for WAP technology have not even started
yet.
Out of everyone who was surveyed, not a single
consumer in the US who had WAP capabilities purchased
online with their cell phone. A total number of less
than 1% of WAP users actually made a purchase online
using their phones and the ones who did were in the UK,
Finland, and Japan.
Quoting William's favorite saying, "Only fools
rush in," has some applicability here. The US is
notorious for having the slowest adoption rate of new
technologies for cell phones. We believe that part of
the reason for that is the sheer size of the US
consumer base.
A note was added for WAP oriented enterprises to
work together to get this technology more in line with
consumer expectations. To do otherwise is to create a
much higher risk of consumers not embracing WAP
services being made available.
Our interpretation of the above. Stop and think. See
what consumers really want and then move forward with
trying to address those needs instead of trying to
create the "Wow factor" out of thin air. At
some point, these companies may remember that they need
to follow the basic business principles if they expect
to get anywhere. Until then they are just burning money
on a grand illusion.
We found a link to the FCC which has a sensible
brochure available to cellular phone users. Nothing
like the garbage we have found at the FDA site. This is
one is refreshingly objective in its content.
It references a website which we mentioned in our
newsletter as no longer being in business so disregard
that and do a search using www.google.com
for companies who may be able to provide coverage
areas.
The brochure is called "Helping Consumers Make
Sense of the Market." It covers a brief summary of
facts and fiction. It also has a toll free number you
can call to request information available to the
public.
Keep in mind that the brochure covers only the
basics and if you are a veteran of the cell phone
industry, it is going to have a big yawn factor in
there. If all you know about cell phones is how to dial
and place a call then you should probably take a look
at it.
REGISTER YOUR
CELL PHONE IN CASE IT IS LOST OR STOLEN
You know that given a little time we are going to
snoop around and find it. This service allows you to
check to see if someone has found a lost phone or
reported one as lost or stolen. As far as we can tell
it is a free service so you may as well.
The really crazy part is that they beat us to it. We
were planning on rolling out a service of this type in
September. Well, the early bird gets the worm as they
say. All we got was a beak full of dirt. Nevertheless,
we are good sports.
The website is very easy to navigate but you must
register to use the service. We plan on supporting them
by putting up a link on our website for visitors to
come in and drop in their info too. We hope that you
find this service to be helpful.
See there. We aim to please our website visitors to
the highest degree we can offer. Where have you found a
more proactive cellular phone newsletter than this one?
I think I will proclaim myself King of the CPN Webcity!
(With the mayor's permission of course.)
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.
