Here is a sampling of what is going out:
May 21, 1999
Dave –
The questions keep coming from people interested in our service. Again,
I'll answer as specifically as I can.
1. What is our target market?
There are two parts to this question. We are targeting specific
professional demographics for licensees and we are targeting specific
geographic locations to build gateways.
a) Licensees. We expect initial Master Licenses for a metropolitan area to
cost $US 100,000. We are using the traditional formula for franchise fees
based on three years net income. A licensee is an investor or investor /
operator that wants a primary business or an additional business on top of a
symbiotic business. For example, a sales professional might be looking for
his own opportunities. They may want to switch from a real estate
profession or something sales related. A symbiotic business is an Internet
Service Provider, computer retailer or a flat rate long distance calling
business. The Internet telephony gateway can operate in tandem with these
types of businesses.
b) Consumers. We have built a strata of consumer groups to target. Single
adults and couples with no children are our primary demographic targets for
the long distance service. They tend to be very profitable. We use
demographics to determine our sales packages to try and generate the most
profit possible.
2. I made a comment earlier about our program not having to be the lowest
cost per minute. Why do I feel this way?
If our program were only based on a singular product such as long distance,
I would be more concerned. We will offer different products based on the
technological capability of Internet Telephony. Also, the race to be the
lowest price is simply ridiculous. One company is offering free long
distance in exchange for demographic information and advertising
requirements. The fact is, even though long distance prices are dropping
there are many different ways to price long distance to be profitable. You
don't have to resort to schemes, scams and high-pressure tactics. Long
distance is very similar to the insurance industry. Certain types of people
behave in consistent ways. We have programs for pricing that work to get
the most profit out of a pricing program.
3. When do we expect to be operational with an Internet Telephony gateway?
Actually, we are ahead of schedule. We have had terrific success in
sourcing gateway partners to work with. Voiceover IP is exploding on a
global basis. There are many companies focused on the technology and
building gateways. We are focused on building customers. It is a plan that
is working terrifically. We expect to be up and running with an Internet
Telephony Gateway in the next eight weeks. Originally we targeted September
of 1999.
The questions we are getting are terrific. Please keep them coming. We
want to keep everyone informed.
Mark Jensen
NPEC Company Press Release
MetroPLUS Update
LAKE ELSINORE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 1999--NP Energy Corporation is pleased to announce that its telecommunications arm, MCC MetroPLUS Communications Corp. has begun marketing operating licenses to its Internet Telephony network currently being built in Vancouver, British Columbia. The program is called the ''Talking Directory(TM) Gateway.''
Internet Telephony uses the Internet to send audio between two telephones in real time. Customers using the Talking Directory(TM) Gateway will be able to pay one flat rate for unlimited long distance calling between points on the system.
MetroPLUS is selling operating licenses to quickly expand the operating area of the new network. MetroPLUS licenses the use of the Internet Telephony network to operators in specific geographic locations. A Licensee owns and operates its own business using the MetroPLUS technology. Licenses are sold by geographic location and population. Qualifications for a licensee are similar to that of a standard franchise.
MetroPLUS is targeting 31 cities in British Columbia, 7 in Alberta, 4 in Saskatchewan and 18 areas in Washington State. MetroPLUS is projecting completion of the Vancouver network in British Columbia by September 1, 1999.
In addition, MCC MetroPLUS Communications Corp. will be changing its name to MetroPLUS Communications Technology, Inc.
On behalf of the Board of Directors
Per: Ray Lazo, President
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact:
Investor Relations
1/888-423-6993
Analyst sees $60 billion IP phone market
By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
January 8, 1999, 4:45 p.m. PT
The worldwide market for IP-based telephone service will skyrocket
to $60 billion by
2005 as telephone companies make "radical" network changes,
according to predictions
by a London research firm.
The prediction, made by Ovum Research, far outstrips most other
analysts' expectations
for how quickly telephone companies will replace their traditional
infrastructures with
Internet-style voice traffic.
Senior Ovum analyst Susan Sweet said that pressure from
corporations, some of which
have already started to adopt Internet Protocol (IP) functions and
applications inside
their own internal telephone networks, will force the big telcos to
pick up the pace in
shifting their infrastructure towards IP traffic.
"As IP becomes the basis for wide-area corporate communications, so
the pressure
from corporate customers will grow on telcos to adopt IP in their
backbone," Sweet
wrote.
IP telephony is the use of Internet packet-switching protocols to
transmit voice traffic,
instead of the traditional network of circuit-switches. The
technology has been available
for several years, but the quality of calls transmitted this way
still ranges widely.
Sweet predicted that corporate use of applications such as "unified
messaging"
services--which integrate voice mail, email, pages, and faxes--and
IP-based call centers
would help boost the use of IP telephony on private networks and
ultimately pressure
telephony companies to modify their networks to follow suit.
Already, some of the biggest telephone companies have taken steps
in this direction. As
a part of its merger with Tele-Communications Incorporated, AT&T
has said it would
start moving its cable based local telephone services towards
packet-switched Internet
protocols by the end of next year. The company also is pushing IP
telephony through its
WorldNet Internet service and in relationships with ISPs worldwide.
By 2005, the U.S market for IP telephony will have climbed to $29
billion, Sweet
forecast. Western European will be close behind, with a market
worth $13.5 billion, she
said.
Other analysts are still less bullish on the speed of this
transition, however.
"You're talking about radical shift in the way voice is carried,"
said Bruce Kasrel, a
telecommunications analyst with Forrester Research. "That doesn't
happen overnight,
especially in the telecom industry."
Kasrel said he thought it would be two to three years before most
of the big telcos begin
integrating voice IP infrastructures into their traditional
networks, and that it would take
another two to three years beyond that for substantial progress to
be made.
"Even that's probably optimistic," he added. But he said that if
the telcos around the
world did decide to move quickly, Ovum's bullish figure could be in
the ballpark. "If
carriers decide that packetized [voice transmission] is the way to
go, then it could be
even bigger than that."
Analysts noted that consumers would not necessarily notice much
difference if telephone
companies do change their infrastructure to handle Internet-style
voice transmissions.
"Does that really matter to consumers?" Kasrel asked. While the
cost of phone service
might drop slightly due to packet-switched technology's efficiency,
consumers would
simply still pick up a traditional phone and dial as always, he
said. "If the transport
mechanism changes, they won't know." |
