Posted: 5/2003

Overheard…

"$6 million to this ILEC is
lunch money."

–Consumer advocate Kathleen
O’Reilly at a conference in Washington D.C. hosted by the National Association
of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, on the Federal Communications Commission
fining SBC Communications Inc. $6 million last year for violating a condition of
its merger with Ameritech. It was the largest forfeiture in the agency’s
history, FCC Chairman Michael Powell said.

Now, It’s Personal

This year marks the 30th anniversary
of the first public telephone call placed on a portable cellular phone. Martin
Cooper, ArrayComm Inc.’s chairman, CEO and co-founder, placed that call in 1973,
while he was general manager of Motorola Inc.’s Communications Systems Division.
It was the incarnation of his vision for personal wireless communications,
distinct from cellular car phones. That first call, placed to Cooper’s rival at
AT&T Corp.’s Bell Labs from the streets of New York City, caused a
fundamental technology and communications market shift toward the person and
away from the place.

Ring-Ring Bling-Bling!

Siemens
Information and Communication Mobile Group has designed a line of wearable
personal communication devices. Called XELIBRI, the accessories will be sold
primarily via department stores and fashion retailers as fashion items with two
collections of four phones per year — spring/summer and fall/winter, of course.
The phones will be available in limited quantities with a lifecycle of 12
months, significantly shorter than existing mobile phones. XELIBRI has launched
initially in the United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, Italy, Singapore and
Spain as of April, and will launch in further markets in September 2003.

"We envisage the scenario where
people will own many fashion accessory phones and wear the one that matches
their mood, the occasion, or their attire," says George Appling, president
of XELIBRI. He likens mobile phones to fashion accessories like watches,
handbags and shoes. Shoes? Siemens can only hope.

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