Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA13884; Wed, 12 Nov 1997 22:05:13 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 22:05:13 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199711130305.WAA13884@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #311 TELECOM Digest Wed, 12 Nov 97 22:05:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 311 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Pager Firm's House of Cards (Tad Cook) Rate Center Divided by Area Code Split (Linc Madison) Rockwell Sues Bay Networks Over K56flex Modem Technology (Eric Florack) CFP: 2nd Workshop on Parallel Processing and Multimedia (Argi Krikelis) Updated Guide to North American Area Codes Wanted (Kevin Mocklin) Using Mobile Phones to Pay for Cola, Juke-box (Monty Solomon) http://www.areacode-info.com/ (John Cropper) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@telecom-digest.org * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-727-5427 Fax: 773-539-4630 ** Article submission address: editor@telecom-digest.org ** Our archives are available for your review/research. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Pager Firm's House of Cards Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 14:12:50 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Published Wednesday, November 12, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News Pager firm's wrong number Why EconoPage rose and fell By Jon Healey Mercury News Staff Writer In a mere 2 1/2 years, Aaron R. Arnott and Michael R. Adams parlayed two briefcases, an answering machine, a motorcycle and a little money into one of the country's largest paging resale operations. The company they founded -- EconoPage Inc. of San Jose -- ultimately became a cash factory, producing half-million-dollar salaries for Arnott and Adams and making even store clerks feel rich. As the business expanded into nearby states, the two young entrepreneurs spun dreams of peddling low-cost pagers nationwide -- or cashing out as millionaires. But EconoPage crashed even more quickly than it rose, in a spectacular October explosion that left behind more than 200,000 prepaid customers and up to $16 million in debts. As law-enforcement investigators and plaintiffs attorneys poke through the company's ruins, one thing has become abundantly clear: The imposing EconoPage structure rose from a foundation that was too fragile to support its weight. Selling pagers is a business rife with marginal operators, attracted by the industry's rapid growth and low entry costs. Arnott and Adams, new to the communications industry, made a series of mistakes: They spent too much, grew too fast, cut their profit margins too thin, and shackled themselves to lengthy service contracts that generated plenty of cash up-front but only expense down the line. But if there is a lesson in the EconoPage experience for entrepreneurs, there is also one for consumers considering prepaid service contracts or memberships of any kind. Those who try to save money by paying in advance are gambling that the seller will outlive the contract. David Benoit, a paramedical examiner based in San Jose, was one of the many Bay Area residents who found out just how bad a gamble that can be. In 1996, he paid EconoPage $378 for a five-year contract, including two years of toll-free service. He then put the number on more than $2,000 worth of business cards, fliers and promotional materials. EconoPage collapsed a little more than one year later. Arnott and Adams, for their part, continue to defend the EconoPage model. As they tell it, greedy suppliers pushed them over the edge in a scheme to pirate their customer base. Indeed, the competition for former EconoPage customers is now running hot. But some paging industry veterans worry about the competition, and they question whether anyone has learned from EconoPage's demise. "There are too many EconoPages out there," said Danny Lee, chief operating officer at Future Paging and Cellular of San Francisco. "Maybe the majority of the paging resellers do not have a good, solid accounting background and reserve to cover (the prepaid contracts). That is the danger." The paging business comprises two kinds of companies: carriers and resellers. Carriers are the companies with the wireless networks that transmit signals from telephones to pagers. They sell directly to the public, but they also sell pagers and service (called "airtime") in bulk to resellers, who act as middlemen. Industry officials say that resellers go belly up all the time, foundering in the face of fierce competition. What's unusual about EconoPage isn't that it failed, they say, but that it was so successful. "This is the biggest reseller I've ever heard of," said Mitchell Sacks, president of TSR Paging, the nation's seventh-largest paging company. The venture began modestly, with a phone call from Adams to Arnott one day early in 1994. Adams reported that an acquaintance was making a comfortable living in Los Angeles as a paging reseller, a business that required little investment and no specialized knowledge. Arnott was 31 at the time, working as the manager of a rent-to-own store. Adams was 32, working in computer sales. Together they came up with $20,000 to $25,000 to get the business started, using Arnott's home as their base. They ran a small advertisement in the Mercury News and set up an answering machine in Arnott's house to take orders. When Arnott got off work, he would hop on his motorcycle with a briefcase of sample pagers to show the people who had responded to the ad. EconoPage's strategy was to offer lower prices and longer contract terms than its competitors, a formula that quickly paid off. "The bigger we got, the more pagers we could buy, the better price we could get," Arnott said. Because of the fierce competition among paging carriers, "they were coming to you every week with a better and better deal." The final offer Eventually, the company settled on this offer: a new pager and one year of airtime for $89.99, two years for $119.99, and three years for $139.99, with an additional year free if the customer turned in an old pager. By contrast, a new pager and a year of airtime in pre-EconoPage days would have cost upward of $120. EconoPage's competitors responded by dropping their prices and offering longer contracts, establishing the one-year prepaid deal -- which had been a rarity -- as the new standard. From three stores in 1995, EconoPage went to 21 in 1996 and 35 in 1997. The sales grew quickly too, rising to $3.1 million per month at the end of 1996, but money seemed to fly out the door just as fast. In particular, the company spent lavishly on advertising, with its budget for newspaper and radio ads climbing to half a million dollars per month, and on payroll. Boosted by daily incentive bonuses, store managers averaged almost $70,000 in yearly pay in 1996. Company investors and top management collected $1.4 million, including payments to ten positions "held by family members or friends," company documents report. Arnott defended the salaries and bonuses, saying, "When you have a company that grows this quickly ... you have to develop some type of performance-based remuneration." Company officials also gained a reputation for flashy spending -- expensive suits, Rolex watches, fancy cars. They made notable contributions to civic causes, too, such as a $9,000 donation to help buy bulletproof vests for the police. The success was intoxicating. Arnott and Adams wanted EconoPage to be nothing less than the nation's largest paging reseller, and they developed a plan to open three stores in each of 10 major cities. The owners also began working in the fall of 1996 on plan B: to sell EconoPage to the highest bidder. Arnott believed he and Adams could reap $5 million to $8 million each in capital gains. They began distributing a prospectus in early 1997, and a number of companies expressed interest right away. Beneath the glittering EconoPage edifice, however, lay some deep and threatening fissures. The company was reporting razor-thin profit margins -- less than $1.50 for every $100 in sales in 1995 and 1996, according to unaudited company documents -- and that was without factoring in the cost of fulfilling its prepaid contracts. EconoPage was also putting off the more lucrative contract renewals -- the lifeblood of most paging companies -- with its long-term contracts and trade-in deals. And it was spending aggressively on growth instead of setting money aside to cover the obligations it was incurring. Meanwhile the two main carriers that supplied EconoPage -- Paging Network Inc. and PageMart Inc., both of Dallas -- encouraged its aggressive growth. They supplied pagers and airtime at discounts that often rose with each new customer recruited, and they sent letters applauding the company's go-go tactics even after EconoPage fell behind on its bills. As Arnott and Adams saw it, PageNet and PageMart provided EconoPage what amounted to a $1 million credit line by allowing EconoPage to run 60 to 90 days behind on its airtime bills and, in PageNet's case, letting EconoPage pay for pagers with company checks that the local PageNet office did not cash for three weeks. This cushion, or "float," was standard industry practice, they said. "That part of the equation," said Sacks of TSR Paging, another one of EconoPage's carriers, "allowed EconoPage to really price their sale of equipment to the consumer below what a reasonable business person would charge." Spokesmen for PageNet and PageMart insisted that their companies did not extend credit to EconoPage or give preferential treatment. Other resellers stayed healthy, said PageNet vice president Stas Wolk, because they took a more cautious approach to growth. In spring 1997, PageNet and PageMart suddenly pulled EconoPage's long financial leash taut. They demanded that the company pay all its overdue bills and current charges and they placed new strictures on the supply of pagers. Arnott and Adams say that the move was purely malicious; spokesmen for PageNet and PageMart said they acted only after EconoPage bounced checks or fell far behind on its payments. The strictures, particularly PageNet's requirement that EconoPage pay cash on delivery for pagers, hurt badly. EconoPage's financial model depended on growth -- in particular, the flow of money that new pager sales produced. Now it had fewer pagers to sell and, as a consequence, fewer new customers. Over the summer, EconoPage struggled to make ends meet. The company laid off 30 percent to 40 percent of its workers, eliminated all perks, pared its advertising, hired an expert in corporate turnarounds and cut salaries, Arnott said. By August, EconoPage officials were telling the carriers they'd found a way to make everyone happy: by selling the company to Source One Wireless Inc. of Chicago, a midsize paging carrier. But as the promised deal dragged on and EconoPage again fell behind on its payments, PageMart decided to cut its losses. In September, PageMart started shutting off hundreds of toll-free pager numbers, the services that cost PageMart the most to provide. Desperate, Arnott said he and Adams offered to sell the company to Source One essentially for nothing. Neither Source One nor any other carrier however, decided EconoPage was worth saving. It wasn't just the bad publicity caused by the PageMart disconnections, industry officials said; it also was EconoPage's balance sheet, which showed $12 million worth of airtime owed to customers. "He had no business to buy," Sacks said. The bleak assessment of EconoPage evidently was shared by Rick Redett, a consultant EconoPage hired to help it work out its troubles. In a September report to PageNet and other carriers, Wolk said, Redett offered this analysis: EconoPage had grown too fast, hired too many people, spent too much on advertising, paid excessive salaries and other perks, and benefited from too little financial expertise. Deal all but dead On Oct. 22, Arnott told the company's creditors that the Source One deal was all but dead. "We called the stores and had them all chained up." Looking back, Arnott and Adams say it's clear to them that PageNet and PageMart deliberately ruined their business. The motive, they said, was to keep Source One from taking over EconoPage's customer base and becoming the dominant paging carrier in Northern California. The accusation is absurd, officials at PageNet and PageMart say. "We would have loved for them to be able to sell this thing to Source One so that we would have gotten paid all the money we were due and have not been paid," said Fred G. Anderson, PageMart's general counsel. Whatever the outcome, the company's saga provides a powerful cautionary tale for all consumers. Some paging competitors, however, argue that the company's heavy advertising so "brainwashed" consumers that they still believe cheap, long-term contracts are a realistic deal. "They want to know why I won't do it (match EconoPage's deals)," said Richard Aal, general manager of American Telecom in San Jose. "I just look at them and say, `They're out of business. That's what put them out of business.' They just don't get it." ------------------------------ From: Telecom@LincMad.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Rate Center Divided by Area Code Split Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 13:15:25 -0800 Organization: LincMad Consulting; change NOSPAM to COM In the recent 415/650 area code split here in northern California, one of the interesting features is that the "San Francisco 3" rate center, which covers roughly the southern third of the city, plus a significant portion of the adjacent suburbs, is now split between the two area codes. Clearly there is a wire center boundary in there somewhere, but it is still a bit unusual to have a single rate center spanning two area codes. San Francisco 3 serves the following prefixes: 415: 239 330 333 334 337 338 405 406 452 466 467 468 469 582 584 585 586 587 656 657 715 799 840 841 994 650: 301 746 755 756 757 758 761 985 991 992 993 997 All but a tiny portion of the area served by the wire center that is now in area code 650 is outside the city limits of San Francisco, mostly in the suburbs of Colma and Daly City. (The area of San Francisco that is now in area code 650 is literally a few city blocks.) The new San Francisco directory (cover date: Sept. 1997-98) still lists these prefixes as "San Francisco 3," although it reflects the area code split. That seems to indicate that there is no plan to divide the rate center along area code lines. Of course, if we ever do get overlays in California, we'll quickly become accustomed to having rate centers with multiple area codes, but for now it's a little ahead of its time. As an aside, I've recently updated my web pages at their new address, < http://www.lincmad.com >, and added a couple of new features, such as a thorough listing of towns and area codes. I am also testing a page which allows you to quickly find out where a given area code is located. Try < http://www.lincmad.com/cityjump.html#415 >, but be aware of two things. First of all, this page is not yet listed on my index page, since it is experimental. Second, the page contains over 300 "anchor points" (e.g., "#415"), which may overwhelm some browsers. With those caveats, you can jump down the table by adding any valid area code or two-letter postal abbreviation after the main URL. I'm adding other features, including a publication-quality map, in the next few weeks. ** Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail spam of any kind ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@LincMad-com URL:< http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must change "NOSPAM" to "com" << ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 06:07:41 PST From: Eric Florack Subject: Rockwell Sues Bay Networks Over K56flex Modem Technology Rockwell Sues Bay Networks Over K56flex Modem Technology by Elinor Mills, IDG News Service November 11, 1997 Rockwell Semiconductor Systems today announced it has filed a lawsuit against Bay Networks for allegedly breaching its K56flex modem technology licensing agreement with Rockwell. Bay Networks' "current business practices violate its K56flex licensing agreement with Rockwell and its actions competitively disadvantage K56flex licensees," a Rockwell statement said. The statement did not specify exactly how Bay is breaching its licensing agreement and officials at Rockwell did not return calls seeking more information. Bay Networks, whose access controller module supports the K56flex modem technology, also did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Dwight Decker, president of Rockwell, said in the statement that the company had tried to resolve the issue with Bay Networks without success, and that litigation could delay deployment and approval of a global 56-kilobits-per-second modem standard. Rockwell and Lucent Technologies developed the K56flex technology that many modem makers and Internet access providers are backing for analog modems that run at up to 56 kbps. Meanwhile 3Com subsidiary U.S. Robotics is pushing an incompatible x2 specification. ------------------------------ From: Argi Krikelis Subject: CFP: 2nd Workshop on Parallel Processing and Multimedia Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 15:37:36 +0000 Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK 2nd Workshop on Parallel Processing and Multimedia Orland, Florida - Monday, March 30, 1998 Preliminary Call for Participation The Workshop on Parallel Processing and Multimedia will be held in Orlando, Florida on March 30, 1998. The workshop, second in the series, is part of the 12th International Parallel Processing Symposium (IPPS '98) which is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Parallel Processing and is held in cooperation with ACM SIGARCH. In the recent years multimedia technology has emerged as a key technology, mainly, because of its ability to represent information in disparate forms as a bit-stream. This enables, everything from text to video and sound to be stored, processed and delivered in digital form. A great part of the current research community effort has emphasized the delivery of the data as an important issue of multimedia technology. However, the creation, processing and management of multimedia forms are the issues most likely to dominate the scientific interest in the long run. The focus of the activity will be how multimedia technology deals with information, which is in general task-dependent and is extracted from data in a particular context by exercising knowledge. The desire to deal with information from forms such as video, text and sound will result in a data explosion. This [requirement to store, process and manage large data sets] naturally leads to the consideration of programmable parallel processing systems as strong candidates in supporting and enabling multimedia technology. The workshop aims to act as a platform where topics related, but not limited, to * parallel architectures for multimedia * parallel multimedia computing servers * mapping multimedia applications to parallel architectures * system interfaces and programming tools to support multimedia applications on parallel processing systems * multimedia content creation, processing and management using parallel architectures * parallel processing architectures of multimedia set-top boxes * multimedia agent technology and parallel processing * `proof of concept' implementations and case studies. Workshop plans include a keynote address andsubmitted papers, and a panel discussion. Submitting Papers & Publication Details Authors are invited to submit manuscripts reporting original unpublished research and recent developments in the topics related to the workshop. The language of the workshop is English. All manuscripts will be peer-reviewed. Submissions should be in uuencoded, gzipped, postscript form and e-mailed to Argy.Krikelis@aspex.co.uk. In cases where electronic submission is not possible, send 4 copies to the Workshop Organiser. Manuscripts must be received by November 12, 1997. The manuscript should not exceed 15 double-spaced (i.e. point size 12), single-sided A4 size page, with a 250-word abstract. The corresponding author is requested to include in the cover letter: 1. complete postal address 2. e-mail address 3. phone number 4. fax number 5. key phrases that characterize the paper's topic. Receipt of submissions will be promptly acknowledged by e-mail. Notification of review decisions will be e-mailed by January 10, 1998. Camera-ready papers will be due by January 30, 1998. Proceedings of all IPPS '98 workshop papers will be available. However, there are efforts for the workshops papers to appear in a book on their own, or as a special issue of a scientific paper. Last year's workshop's papers will appear in a special issue of the "Parallel Computing" Journal. Workshop Organiser Argy Krikelis Aspex Microsystems Ltd. Brunel University Uxbridge, UB8 3PH United Kingdom Tel: + 44 1895 203184 Fax: + 44 1895 203185 E-mail: Argy.Krikelis@aspex.co.uk Programme Committee Edward J. Delp, Purdue University Divyesh Jadav, IBM Research Center, Almaden Martin Goebel, GMD, Germany Argy Krikelis, Aspex Microsystems Ltd., UK Tosiyasu L. Kunii, The University of Aizu, Japan Vasily Moshnyaga, Kyoto University, Japan Eythymios D. Providas, University of Thessaly, Greece Registration: This workshop is being held as part of IPPS. The usual IEEE Computer Society guidelines apply wrt registration; the workshop is open to IPPS registrants and separate registration for the workshop is not needed. Information about IPPS can be obtained over the Web at the following URL: http://www.ippsxx.org ------------------------------ From: Kevin Mocklin Subject: Updated Guide to North American Area Codes Wanted Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 10:51:31 -0500 Hello, First, I'd like to say thank you for the Digest and associated Web pages, they are a great resource! I am not currently a subscriber to the list, but a few years back I followed for a while, and obtained a nice text list of area codes which also included a breakdown for each area code similiar to the following: 314 Saint Louis and Columbia, (Eastern) Missouri The file also had a bunch of other general information in it. The closing note in the file is as follows: Closing note: The information in this [Guide to North American Area Codes] first appeared in various parts in TELECOM Digest Volume 9, issues 2 and 15; January 3 and January 15, 1989. [Note: Various updates made throughout 1992 and 1993 by Carl Moore, others.] -------------------- Now I am simply looking for an updated list that includes all the recent splits and changes. Bellcore's Web page only indicates State, and after doing some poking around on your web site, I've found pieces here and there, but no single basic text file with all the codes and a description of the area they cover. Is such a file maintained and available in one nice package? I like to be able to simply grep for an area code. Thanks for any help. Cheers, Kevin IntraServer Technology, Inc. 508.429.0425 x 241 mocklin@intraserver.com http://www.intraserver.com/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is indeed one area of the archives which needs much updating. There are several areas of the archives which need to be brought up to date but I just do not have the time or resources for it at present. Can anyone help with a current copy of the script in question? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 20:27:35 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Using Mobile Phones to Pay For Cola, Juke-box HELSINKI (Reuters) - Technology-crazed Finns can now play their favorite tune on a juke-box or buy a bottle of coke from a vending machine using mobile phones instead of coins. Telecom Finland, launching the service on Wednesday, said one of Helsinki's restaurants had already fitted a juke-box with a digital device which directly debited callers' telephone accounts when they selected a tune. Similar devices have been installed in two Coca-Cola vending machines, the telephone company said. Finland has the world's highest penetration of mobile phones at more than 40 per 100 inhabitants. It is home to Nokia, one of leading producers of mobile phones. ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: http://www.areacode-info.com/ Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 16:02:54 -0500 Finally up and running! :-) We've given our popular area code section its own home site! http://www.areacode-info.com/ John Cropper LINCS http://www.lincs.net/ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #311 ******************************