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To: Mephisto who wrote (3076)	12/19/1999 8:10:00 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 34857

Kids Make It A Mobile Christmas By Paul Quigley LONDON—When Santa Claus slides down the chimney this Christmas he'll be bearing more than a cheery smile and a “ho-ho-ho.” This year, childrens' stockings will resound with the ringing of wireless phones. All four of Britain's wireless operators and their elves are scurrying to prepare themselves for a particularly merry Christmas. The kids' market has exploded, primed by increased demand for prepaid cellular offerings. According to new research by U.K. retail supermarket giant F.W. Woolworth, Barbie dolls and Sony PlayStations have tumbled down kids' Christmas wish lists. The “must-have” for 10- to 15-year olds? When asked what they wanted most for Christmas, 50 percent chose to go wireless, followed by 32 percent who preferred a color TV and just 19 percent who wanted Sony PlayStations. Woolworth's research also found that kids in the north of England are more keen to unwrap mobile phones than anywhere else in Britain: More than 60 percent want Santa to bring them a wireless phone. “Kids clearly love mobiles,” says Jim Ramsay, mobile phone buyer at Woolworth. “They can send each other text messages as well as make calls to one another. The phones we sell are prepaid, which enables parents to ensure costs can be controlled.” Woolworth also is seeing a dramatic rise in the sale of prepaid airtime vouchers as stocking fillers. “In recent weeks, we also reduced the prices of all our phones,” says Ramsay, “As a result, sales are booming.” Woolworth's retail store in Liverpool alone is moving between 50 and 60 phones a day. “This is phenomenal growth when you consider that F.W. Woolworth only entered the mobile market relatively recently,” Ramsay adds. Woolworth's mobile Christmas survey also reveals that more than 60 percent of parents who will be giving kids and teen-agers a wireless phone this festive season responded that they think mobiles are important for safety reasons, while 61 percent say they would simply enable people to keep tabs on their children's whereabouts. However, Christmas is always a double-edged sword for the cellular companies. Already victims of their own success in recent years, customer services and billing systems are close to overloading this time each year, something each wants to avoid at all costs on this millennial Christmas. Together, 4 million new subscribers are expected to join the United Kingdom's burgeoning 20 million existing wireless users on the four networks over Christmas. Orange plc alone is expecting to win 1 million new customers over the festive season. In the run-up to Christmas between October and November, Orange added 400,000 new connections–75 percent of whom opted for the popular “Just Talk” prepaid service. Vodafone AirTouch plc also expects to add 1 million new customers. According to spokesman Mike Caldwell, Vodafone's watchwords for the new millennium will be “capital and automation.” The company is spending $16 million a week on new infrastructure and systems to keep pace with the anticipated growth. However, both BTCellnet and One 2 One decline to forecast their subscriber projections this Christmas. Saving face is easier that way. With an unfair geographical advantage, perhaps Scandinavian-based handset vendors Nokia and Ericsson will be glad of the relatively short sleighride to Santa's new “PolarTel” phone distribution gift center at the North Pole. If Motorola, NEC, Panasonic and a raft of others suddenly open handset manufacturing facilities in the northern reaches of Greenland and Lapland by this time next year, we'll know why. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------