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To: S100 who wrote (16321)	11/2/2001 2:35:43 PM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

re: Four new Cingular GPRS markets opened Waiting for 1xRTT? >> Cingular Extends GPRS To Four New Markets Chris Goldman Oct 29 2001 Wireless Review Cingular Wireless (www.cingular.com) last week extended its GPRS network into Las Vegas, the Carolinas, eastern Tennessee and the Georgia coast. Cingular began its GPRS upgrade in late August with service in Seattle. The GPRS network supports the carrier’s new packet-data service, Wireless Internet Express, which is "always-on" and operates 10 times faster than previous data services. With the new service, subscribers can now shift between a wireless Internet session and a voice call or text message without dropping the Internet connection. Steve Krom, Cingular vice president of marketing for Internet and data, said this kind of integration is a big step in the development of wireless data services. "As GPRS and other services come out, they will enable us to provide that simultaneous voice and e-mail," he said in an interview prior to the announcement. Subscribers in Seattle, Las Vegas and the southern states with GPRS service can now use the carrier’s My Wireless Window Internet portal to access new services such as calendar, shopping, address book, e-mail and instant messaging. The My Wireless Window portal also provides access to stock quotes, sports, games, weather, news, movies, lottery, horoscopes, phone directories and driving directions. The Cingular Wireless Internet Express is offered at a flat rate of $14.99 per month. Subscribers using the service are not charged airtime against their wireless rate plan minutes for using the services. However, they are limited to sending 100 messages per month on the $14.99 plan. For $17.99 per month, subscribers get 250 messages; $21.99 buys 500 messages per month. For each message sent over their limit, subscribers will pay 10 cents. Another restriction is the total number of kilobytes transmitted per month. All plans are limited to 500kb. For subscribers who transmit more than 500, the charge per kilobyte will be 7 cents. A table on Cingular’s web site suggests that checking the price of SBC stock would require about 6kb. Reading a news article would require 10kb and sending an e-mail consisting of 10, 5-character words would take 4kb. Additionally, subscribers who purchase a new Motorola Timeport 7389i tri-band phone , can roam anywhere on GSM across the United States and Canada and with Cingular's GSM partners overseas. The phone will allow users travel to more than 150 countries without having to change handsets or phone numbers. It includes personal information management (PIM) functionality, synchronization capabilities, voice recognition and a voice note recorder. Extending Enterprise Efforts Krom said in a statement that Cingular would use its experience with business applications to deliver many existing services now offered via the carrier’s Mobitex network, over GPRS. One of those new services is Cingular Xpress Mail. The service, he said, is a natural extension of the Blackberry e-mail solution Cingular currently supports. "We’ve been selling the Blackberry behind-the-fire-wall corporate e-mail solution now for over a year," he said in the interview. "And that has met with extreme success. As we looked at the next level ... there were two areas we needed to look at. One was how do we expand this offering to something that could go down-market to smaller and medium-sized businesses, who frankly don’t have the resources and desire to invest in behind-the-firewall solutions. Also, we wanted a platform that enables us to add other applications beyond e-mail." Cingular’s technology partner, Seven (www.seven.com) provides the platform to support a direct connection between a business and Cingular’s network. Businesses using Microsoft Exchange (www.microsoft.com) can link directly to the Cingular network now. Future enhancements will allow the same connection for businesses using Lotus Notes (www.lotus.com) or PeopleSoft’s CRM software (www.peoplesoft.com). "The Express Mail solution is focused on providing (users) a window into their Exchange e-mail that’s sitting on their desktop," Krom said. "One of the differences between this and our Blackberry solution is that it really is a mirror image. You see the same in-box, same folders, and it allows you to manage your e-mail just the same as if you were sitting at your desk in front of your computer." The Express Mail solution puts administration power into the hands of corporate customers. "We are actually able to give the corporation... an extranet-like solution to manage who has access to wireless enablement of e-mail and other applications," he said. "It’s really going to be up to the corporation as to who gets access, or who gets turned off and when." << - Eric -