Friday, February 7, 2025

#TBT: Mobile model methods; Paging seeks a path ahead; FPGAs get cheaper … this week in 1998


Editor’s Notice: RCR Wi-fi Information goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the highest headlines from the previous. Hearth up the time machine, placed on these sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and benefit from the reminiscences!

Discovering cell’s advertising and marketing id

What does wi-fi have in frequent with toothpaste? Possibly not a lot now, however maybe the toothpaste business has realized a advertising and marketing secret that wi-fi carriers may gain advantage from. Toothpaste corporations have realized to choose a buyer phase they need and market their model to that buyer, stated Mike Crawford, president of M/C/C, a Dallas-based advertising and marketing communications agency specializing within the high-tech business. Crest, he stated, has positioned itself because the cavity combating toothpaste and is advertising and marketing its merchandise to oldsters; the `Goal tastes higher’ concept is designed to draw customers that don’t like toothpaste; Shut Up is focused at younger {couples} with its contemporary breath focus; and UltraBrite targets people who smoke and occasional drinkers by promising whiter enamel. “Every model owns an attribute,” stated Crawford. “The trick is to determine what you need to personal.” Most carriers, he stated, haven’t figured that out but. They both are chasing the identical group of shoppers–primarily high-value enterprise or prosperous clients–or they’re casting their internet too huge and attempting to catch all people. “They every can’t get 18 p.c of the market spending $60 or extra a month,” stated Hunt Eggleston, president of Know-how Traits and Focus Inc. “There simply aren’t sufficient individuals on the market.” The mission of carriers has been progress in any respect prices, stated William Brunette, director of market growth at Matrixx Advertising and marketing Inc., a supplier of outsourced buyer care companies. “The business has measured success by way of subscriber numbers and subscriber additions, and analysts have measured the well being of corporations by these numbers,” he stated. “These days are coming to an finish.” … Learn extra

Metrocall introduces Pager ID

ALEXANDRIA, Va.-Metrocall Inc. introduced the nationwide rollout of its new Pager ID service, which identifies the title of the particular person putting the decision to the pager, in addition to a return phone quantity for the paged social gathering to name. The decision again can go to any phone, not simply the paging social gathering’s dwelling telephone, stated Metrocall. Metrocall plans to roll out the brand new service area by area starting in mid-April. Will probably be out there as a alphanumeric enhancement on Metrocall’s nationwide service. … Learn extra

Paging appears to be like for a path ahead

NEW YORK-“The problem for the paging business is to reinvent itself so it may possibly grow to be a free cash-flow enterprise, to place the brakes on capital expenditures and drive up revenues whereas unit progress is declining,” stated Brian G. Coleman, a director of Toronto Dominion Securities USA Inc., New York. The stampede that began within the mid-Nineties to paging resellers as a method to spice up buyer numbers has led to unrealistic inflation in progress expectations. This resulted in an costly community enlargement increase that couldn’t be paid for out of recent buyer additions due to excessive churn charges and low common income per subscriber related to these distribution channels, based on Cynthia M. Motz, vice chairman of Credit score Suisse First Boston, New York. In the course of the previous yr or so, “the ability has shifted again to the carriers, which don’t should put up with worth undercutting from the resellers,” stated Jeanine Oburchay, affiliate director of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., New York. Higher management of reseller channels, the shift away from leased pagers and different efforts to enhance operations have began to repay for paging carriers. “It’s evident from the upgrades in rankings over the previous a number of months that (securities) analysts are getting extra comfy,” Oburchay stated. That sanguine view isn’t shared by Jane Snorek, analysis director and portfolio supervisor for Oberweis Asset Administration, Aurora, Ailing. “Development traders need earnings per share and worth traders need money circulation, so individuals in paging shares must be worth traders,” she stated. “Paging corporations have by no means gotten over their huge debt load, even [Paging Network Inc.], the very greatest (provider) with essentially the most subscribers. We now have positively exited the paging business.” Nonetheless, Coleman stated he believes the arrival and enlargement of enhanced messaging companies guarantees to be probably the most vital income progress drivers for the business. “The PageWriter is sort of a cell e-mail whose utility can’t be duplicated by a mobile or [personal communications services] telephone, and it doesn’t require me, as a shopper, to study something new,” he stated. “There’s a ton of life in it. The performance is exponentially increased than one-way.” … Learn extra

Extra paging consolidation anticipated

NEW YORK-The merger spree within the paging business in the course of the previous few years at present is at a lull, however acquisition exercise just isn’t over by any means. “Among the many high 10 and even the highest seven, there may be extra consolidation to come back,” stated Jeanine Oburchay, affiliate director of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., New York. MobileMedia Corp. “would positively grow to be a goal” for acquisition if it emerges from chapter with the plan now earlier than the courtroom, she stated. That proposal, if accepted, would go away the paging provider with about $150 million in debt and a debt ratio of lower than twice money circulation, which is “considerably decrease than anybody else.” Cynthia M. Motz, vice chairman of Credit score Suisse First Boston, New York, stated she doesn’t imagine some other paging provider essentially would need to purchase MobileMedia. Moreover monetary difficulties, she stated there could also be issues on the middle-management stage of MobileMedia that different paging corporations can be reluctant to inherit. Brian G. Coleman, director of Toronto Dominion Securities USA Inc., New York, thinks MobileMedia may very well be an acquirer. “Primarily based on the numbers we’ve run, it will be levered at lower than two instances money circulation. That might give it fairly a little bit of acquisition capability,” he stated. “I might say MobileMedia may very well be a consolidator, a car to consolidate the business.” Arch Communications Group Inc. is one other probably candidate for pairing, Oburchay stated. “It has a pleasant stable (buyer) base and nice margins. It wants a transaction that will get it much less leveraged than it’s now.” … Learn extra

New Nokia telephones embody the second-gen Communicator

HANOVER, Germany-Nokia Corp. launched three new handsets for the 900 MHz International System for Cellular communications market this week on the Cebit ’98 exhibition in Hanover, Germany. The Nokia 8810 weighs lower than 3.5 ounces and options built-in knowledge communications capabilities with infrared connectivity, name profiles and caller-grouping capabilities. Nokia’s second-generation Communicator, the Nokia 9110, provides knowledge communications capabilities, together with entry to the Web, e-mail, telefax and quick message service, in addition to offering the person with a number of private organizer capabilities and wi-fi imaging, stated the corporate. The Nokia 8810 and 9110 Communicator are scheduled to be out there in GSM 900 MHz markets in the course of the third quarter. … Learn extra

Paging and the patron mindset

Paging carriers and business analysts alike imagine one of many greatest struggles dealing with the business is that it wants to alter its picture within the thoughts of the patron. For years, paging carriers marketed themselves as an inexpensive communications instrument. As we speak, they need to market themselves as value-added info suppliers. Based on Wayne Stargardt, vice chairman of promoting at PageMart Wi-fi Inc., the enterprise person is a reasonably simple market to focus on. “We don’t should promote this to them,” he stated. “They’re ready for this.” However the shopper market is an entire completely different beast. “Anytime you’re shifting a common thought on a product, it’s very tough,” stated Steven Kellogg of Steven Kellogg Wi-fi Advertising and marketing in San Marcos, Calif. “It’s like pulling at a prepare together with your enamel.” Stargardt agreed. “One in every of our greatest challenges now (is) to speak to shopper customers the added worth they’ll obtain.” Analysts say a straightforward lure for carriers to fall into is to grow to be so enamored with the brand new expertise that they lose sight of the market. Bick Truit, president of the advertising and marketing consulting agency Applied sciences Analysis Group Inc., stated this can be a frequent error. “The error most expertise corporations make is that they make a expertise evolution path as a substitute of a market phase evolution path,” he stated. Phone corporations, for instance, ship clients all kinds of details about new companies like caller ID and such to clients subscribing to essentially the most primary service plans-essentially overshooting the goal, Truit famous. … Learn extra

FPGA increase predicted, as costs drop

NEW YORK-Subject-programmable gate arrays are poised to grow to be the following key driver within the development towards smaller, cheaper, extra highly effective and extra rapidly deployable cell websites, based on a brand new report by Allied Enterprise Intelligence, Oyster Bay, N.Y. In contrast to the Utility Particular Built-in Circuits extensively used right now, FPGAs “can simply be programmed and reprogrammed, so they permit for quick (community) deployment,” stated Laurence Swasey, senior analyst for Allied. “With ASICs, you (the carriers) code them, you ship them to the seller, which produces them and sends them again to you. The method takes two to 3 months.” By comparability, getting field-programmable gate arrays as much as snuff could be carried out on website at a provider’s services inside a matter of days. However they do price extra, and that has been a hindrance to date to their broader utilization as an infrastructure element. “FPGAs have been 5 to 10 instances dearer (than ASICs), however they’re now about three to 5 instances dearer,” he stated. Swasey attributed the drop in worth to elevated quantity and high quality of FPGA manufacturing, prompted by carriers’ rising realization about the benefits of this new community element. Xylinx and DynaChip are two producers of field-programmable gate arrays with which Swasey stated he’s acquainted. … Learn extra

Try the RCR Wi-fi Information Archives for extra tales from the previous.

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