Took a tour through the new G* home web site...
Overall, I think it's a big improvement over the old one in look and feel as well as quantity and quality of information. Quite detailed product descriptions for three types of fixed phones (by Q, Ericson and Schlumberger) as well as the multi mode mobile phones, car and maritime kits. Of course, no pricing was provided...
Provides specific list of countries "for initial service in 1999"
I was pleased to see all of Central America, Chile, Poland and Russia among the list, along with US, Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, S. Africa and the rest of Europe.
The links to "service providers" was rather disappointing. First, a lot of them, including Tesam, aren't linked. The links to Brazil, Russia and Elsacom land you in information deserts, as far I'm concerned. Also disappointing that no SP is even listed for most of S and SE Asia. MTA is apparently still alive, however in E. Africa.
There are no links whatsoever to true "retailer/distributors."
The site is in English only, though the front page seems to indicate a plan to make it multilingual one of these days.
My bet is the "fixed access units" by Q and E are going to be G*'s secret weapon. They look like they could be made very inexpensive, they're "plug and play" with common DC power supplies (or car batteries!) and virtually any analog phone. I can easily imagine applications for these things on every continent, from US Forest Service to Russian Dachas, to villages in every 3rd world country, to roof tops of a lot of middle/upper middle class people in areas with bad or limited land lines. Many not poor people that are dissatisfied with the quality or availability of phone lines in their region (including some in the US!) may find this FAUs to be a very attractive quick fix; will be interesting to see how much minutes are sold for via these things. G* wholesale rate to fixed units was supposed to be around $0.35, I believe.
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