#TBT: Billing strikes on-line; Cricket telephones ‘beloved to dying’; ‘Moveable web’ to bridge digital divide … this week in 2000

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

Dash exams 1XEvolution

Lucent Applied sciences Inc. and Dash PCS introduced they are going to conduct a joint trial of 1XEvolution expertise, a third-generation expertise primarily based on Excessive Knowledge Fee expertise. The trial will start over the Dash PCS community within the first half of 2001 and includes testing and verification of the two.4-megabit-per-second functionality utilizing Lucent’s Flexent wi-fi community platform. The check initially will happen within the Dash PCS Know-how Integration Heart in Lenexa, Kansas. The CDMA Growth Group lately submitted the 1XEV specification to world requirements group, Third Era Partnership Challenge 2. The specification incorporates 1XRTT expertise, which affords doubled voice capability and information speeds of as much as 144 kilobits per second to current Code Division A number of Entry networks and HDR expertise developed by Qualcomm Inc. 3GPP is anticipated to finish standardization of the expertise in August. Many CDMA operators plan to deploy 1X expertise by subsequent 12 months, whereas Korean operators SK Telecom and KT Freetel plan industrial deployments within the fourth quarter. 1XEV ought to turn out to be commercially accessible by the tip of 2001. … Learn extra

Get yer eMinutes on-line

REDMOND, Wash.-AT&T Wi-fi Providers Inc. stated it’s providing a pay as you go characteristic referred to as AT&T eMinutes, which permits the corporate’s pay as you go clients to refill account voice minutes on-line for speedy use. The corporate stated this system is the primary to supply nationwide pay as you go wi-fi minutes on the market on-line in the US. The service is offered by Qpass, a digital commerce companies firm, which offered the commerce infrastructure for transaction-processing, customer-registration and customer-care capabilities by way of the Web. … Learn extra

Altel takes billing on-line

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.-Alltel Corp. launched a free on-line billing system for many of its wi-fi clients, permitting them to research their calling patterns and pay payments with a bank card by way of a safe Web connection. “Alltel’s on-line billing system saves money and time for purchasers by relieving them of writing checks, shopping for postage and different expenses related to mailing payments,” stated Kevin Beebe, communications group president for Alltel. “Extra importantly, it offers Alltel’s clients the liberty to research their payments at their comfort. This enables us to construct nearer relationships with our clients by offering them with easy-to-use instruments to satisfy their on a regular basis wants.” … Learn extra

Billing and buyer care intersect with the web

NEW YORK-The traditional knowledge that communications software program and enhanced companies have been “a one-night stand as an funding alternative,” has light away amid a proliferation of recent service necessities, stated Susan Passoni, vice chairman of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp. Excluding digital commerce, DLJ tasks the worldwide marketplace for telecommunications billing and buyer care will attain $8 billion by year-end and develop to $35 billion by the tip of 2005. “About 99 % of a service’s interface with a buyer is thru the month-to-month invoice. Right now’s billing techniques are (changing into) extra advanced and are integral to new service initiatives, advertising and marketing and pricing methods for all carriers,” Passoni stated. “One of the thrilling issues powering the change in the best way we talk is the [meeting] of mobility and the Web (as a result of) of the ubiquity of wi-fi and the Web, location sensitivity and any time, anyplace communications … The Web is the killer [application] for wi-fi.” Worldwide, the variety of wi-fi customers is projected to extend to about 550 million by the tip of this 12 months and to surpass 1 billion by the tip of 2003. Wi-fi information customers, who comprised 31 million of the 425 million wi-fi subscribers on the finish of 1999, are anticipated to exceed the 1 billion-mark by the tip of 2005, Passoni stated. … Learn extra

Cricket telephones get ‘beloved to dying’

One factor Cricket Communications Inc. didn’t plan on when it determined to supply a wi-fi service that competes with landline telephony was the truth that handsets break sooner. Within the two markets the place Cricket has launched service, clients are utilizing a mean of 1,000 minutes monthly, Leap Wi-fi Worldwide Inc., Cricket’s guardian firm, stated in its current quarterly convention name. In consequence, telephones break extra and clients don’t get them fastened. Cricket is contemplating establishing restore amenities and an insurance coverage program to maintain clients from churning off the community. “The telephones are simply getting used on a regular basis,” stated Harvey White, chairman and chief government officer of Leap. “Over 60 % of our clients use their telephone as their major telephone. They’re not simply breaking down, however they’re being dropped, getting beer spilled on them extra usually or no matter. It’s a phenomena that on this phase of the market we’re going to must cope with. We’re speaking to our distributors in regards to the telephone and telephone life. I’m positive wi-fi telephones have been by no means designed for this type of utilization.” Cricket affords clients limitless native calling for an upfront fee of about $30 monthly, however the firm has purposely restricted the protection space to the metropolitan space, and clients can’t roam. Cricket has launched simply two markets, Chattanooga and Nashville, Tenn. … Learn extra

ETSI GSM requirements work strikes to 3GPP

SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS, France-The European Telecommunications Requirements Institute’s Technical Committee Particular Cellular Group, which has been answerable for setting World System for Cellular communications requirements, introduced it would shut. ETSI stated a lot of the ongoing work carried out by SMG shall be transferred to the Third-Era Partnership Challenge, with the mandatory structural adjustments inside 3GPP anticipated to be finalized by July. “The brand new association concentrates all GSM and Common Cellular Telecommunications System specs work into one physique, which is open on equal phrases to firms worldwide,” stated Friedhelm Hillebrand, chairman of SMG. … Learn extra

‘Moveable web’ is coming

WASHINGTON-A bunch of wi-fi and telecommunications executives are planning to roll out a brand new service they hope will result in residential wi-fi broadband service with what could possibly be megabit information charges. The marketplace for Burst Wi-fi Inc. are these clients that can’t get entry to both digital subscriber traces or cable modems. “That is for the folks that get forgotten. We’re going to have the ability to bridge the digital divide in a cheap manner,” stated George Tronsrue, Burst’s chairman and chief government officer. The enterprise mannequin requires the expertise to be “plug-n-play.” One imaginative and prescient is that it is going to be in regards to the measurement of a mobile-phone handset and velcro to the again of a laptop computer. The expertise shall be moveable however not cell, stated Richard Compton, Burst’s chief expertise officer, previously of Lucent Applied sciences Inc. This differs from Qualcomm Inc.’s Excessive Knowledge Fee expertise. HDR would enable the person to acquire high-speed information whereas as a passenger in a automobile or prepare. Whereas Compton stated Burst is HDR, “we might see stripping away the mobility to get a broader pipe.” Burst’s marketing strategy piggy-backs on the wi-fi infrastructure already in place and different companies shall be outsourced, Tronsrue stated. “We’re going to have the ability to outsource lots of issues that 5 years in the past we might have needed to do in-house,” he stated. … Learn extra

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