Verizon Wireless says it is moving forward with plans to acquire Alltel Corp. for $28.1 billion, although the countrys financial climate has worsened since the companies reached an agreement four months ago.

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Europes leading telecommunications company, Deutsche Telekom, admitted Saturday that it has lost confidential data belonging to 17 million T-mobile clients.


The theft, in 2006, which is now subject to a judicial inquiry, involved telephone numbers, dates of birth, addresses and email addresses, subsidiary T-Mobile said in a statement.

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A growing number of Europeans do not bother to buy landline telephone service in their homes, relying instead on their cell phones, the European Commission said Thursday.


Cell phones, which first outnumbered human beings in Europe in 2006, did that by an even greater margin in 2007: nearly 112 phones for every 100 people, the EU executive body said.

One reason is that monthly line rental for fixed phones costs more on average than a prepaid mobile phone package.

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Research In Motion is preparing to launch the long anticipated touch-screen version of its BlackBerry smartphone, according to an official promotion e-mail from U.S. carrier Verizon Wireless .

RIM Touchscreen

Turn off the rumor mills, pull down the mocked-up artwork, and say goodbye to the blogger speculation. Google and T-Mobiles G1, the first mobile phone built around Googles open-source, Linux-based Android platform, is officially a product.


Before a warm, if not entirely enthusiastic crowd in Manhattan, executives from T-Mobile, HTC and Google (including a surprise appearance by company founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page) officially unveiled the T-Mobile G1.

Listing for $179 with two data plans ($25 and $35), the T-Mobile G1 is available now to existing T-Mobile customers in limited quantities (via T-Mobiles web site) and at all T-Mobile locations by late next month. It will also launch in the U.K. in November, and across all of Europe by early next year.

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Mobile phone makers and operators risk losing thousands of their most profitable customers as financial havoc whacks the global banking industry.


Analysts said the success of Blackberry-maker RIM is the most dependent on Wall Streets future.

In worst case scenario 40,000 workers may lose their jobs in finance following Lehmans collapse and problems at other big financial firms, New York Governor David Paterson said earlier this week.

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Federal investigators said Sunday they plan to obtain the cell phone records of two teenagers and the engineer of a commuter train to determine whether text messages played a part in a head-on collision that killed 25 people.

A commuter rail car lies on its side after a collision Friday near Los Angeles, California.

The Metrolink train had failed to stop for a red signal, triggering the Friday collision with a freight train, according to the commuter trains operators. In addition to the 25 fatalities, more than 130 passengers were injured.

On Sunday, Kitty Higgins of the National Transportation Safety Board said investigators have been in touch with two teenagers who told a local television station that they had been exchanging text messages with the Metrolink train engineer before the impact.

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A key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee is asking the nations top four wireless carriers to justify the sharply rising rates they charge people to send and receive text messages.


In letters to top executives at Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile, Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl said Tuesday that he is concerned that rising text messaging rates reflect decreasing competition in the wireless business.

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AT&T plans to offer, through its mobile Internet portal, a collection of Yahoos oneSearch mobile Web services including links to news, financial information, weather, Flickr photos as well as Web search via the phone.

The craggy gullies where Idaho cowboy Paul Nettleton runs 1,200 head of cattle are often precious minutes from reliable cell phone coverage.


That could spell disaster in this region where sudden summertime storms howl in from eastern Oregon, bringing dry lightning that can ignite fast-moving wildfires on sage- and juniper-covered hillsides. Unchecked, the flames could quickly turn this old mining towns historic wooden buildings to ashes.

This spring, Nettleton and six other Owyhee County ranchers who make their livelihoods in some of Americas most remote backcountry began carrying satellite telephones provided by the federal Bureau of Land Management and the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security.

It is an effort to turn men whose ranching families have been wedded to this land for more than a century into a high-tech advance guard against devastating wildfires.

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Nokia the worlds biggest cellphone maker, said it expects to lose market share in the third quarter as it fights to maintain profit margins, sending its shares as much as 14 percent lower.

Nokia warned its third-quarter market share would fall from the 40 percent notched up in the second three months of the year, compared with a steady market share it forecast earlier.

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A minor update has been made available for PageGate. PageGate is a network messaging gateway that allows messages to be sent via SMS, Fax and a variety of Internet protocols to wireless devices. The latest release version of PageGate is 5.09 and is available from the download section. If you are a current registered PageGate user the release is available free of charge. Details of the current version changes can be seen in the PageGate release notes.

The number of mobile users in China, the worlds biggest cellphone market, now tops 600 million, the government said, as subscribers increasingly abandon fixed lines.

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The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.


The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that do not find a link between increased tumors and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Herberman is basing his alarm on early, unpublished data. He says it takes too long to get answers from science and he believes people should take action now — especially when it comes to children.

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In the English-speaking world, many cell phone users leave emergency contact information in the devices address books under an entry labeled ICE — for in case of emergency.


Now, the U.N. International Telecommunication Union is trying to adapt that system for the rest of the world.

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The rising cost of food is a growing concern for many people across the world.

There have been protests, and even riots, in countries including Mexico, India and Egypt, clear evidence of the struggle that many people are now facing.

However, if Italians feel that their local food retailer is charging unreasonable prices, they can now call on a new service to help them haggle or walk away.

Thanks to a SMS  text system set up jointly by the Italian agriculture ministry and consumer associations, shoppers can check the average price of different foods in northern, central and southern Italy.

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Hundreds of mobile phone download sites are to be investigated after an EU-wide sweep of services.

Some 80% of the 500 websites offering ringtones and phone wallpaper breached regulations, the European Commission said on Thursday.

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For less than $15, you can buy a cell phone loaded with minutes. You can buy more as you go whenever those minutes run out. Best of all, you are not locked into a long-term contract.

But in South Florida, New York, California, Georgia, Texas and elsewhere, traffickers have figured out they can make big profits by purchasing thousands of these low-cost phones and tweaking the software so that calls can be made on any cell network. The altered phones are then sold all over the world — costing the phone companies tens of millions of dollars.

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The cost of sending a text message from the bar or the beach when mobile phone users are outside their home state in the European Union will be cut by 70 percent from next year under new plans, an EU source said.

EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding will announce outline plans on Tuesday that include extending price caps on roamed voice calls for another three years, the source added.

Pope Benedict XVI took a new hi-tech road to spreading his message Tuesday, sending a mobile phone text to pilgrims attending World Youth Day celebrations in Australia, organisers said.

Young friend, God and his people expect much from u because u have within you the Fathers supreme gift: the Spirit of Jesus - BXVI. Was the first message sent.

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Washington Nationals fans soon will be able to text in charity donations during a game, thanks to a partnership between the team, MLB.com, and the Mobile Giving Foundation. During the July 13 game against the Houston Astros, fans will be invited to text the word NATS to 90999 to give $5 to support the work of the Childrens National Medical Center to fight pediatric diabetes.

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Ringtone Media Studio is the best way to create your personalized ringtones from your mp3s and CDs, mobile movies from your video collection, and picture slideshows or mobile wallpapers from your photo collection. No subscriptions, no contracts, no pay-per-download. Create as many ringtones, wallpapers and movies as you want.

Ringtone Media Studio is 50% off for only 24 hours!

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are suing the Department of Justice to obtain official records concerning the U.S. governments possible use of cell-phone-tracking technology to spy on individuals without first obtaining a court order based on probable cause.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the civil-liberties groups said the DOJ failed to provide an adequate and timely response to a records request filed last year under the Freedom of Information Act.

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Mobile PhoneTools creates unlimited communication possibilities by synchronizing your cell phone with your PC and allowing you to exploit the most powerful features of your phone.

Mobile Phone Tools Discounted 50% for only 24 hours!

By a vote of 293 to 129, the House of Representatives passed a bill meant to protect telecom companies from being sued for eavesdropping. The Senate is expected to approve the bill sometime next week.

Lawmakers have crafted a compromise on a bill that would extend controversial eavesdropping legislation and add provisions meant to protect telecommunications companies from private lawsuits, including several already under way.

Ending months of negotiations, the House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill that shields cooperating telecommunications providers from invasion of privacy lawsuits and extends the powers of government agencies to order wiretaps without a judge-issued warrant.

The House passed the update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by a vote of 293 to 129. All but one of those voting against the bill were Democrats.

California will try to wrest cell phones from the hands of drivers, telling everyone from movie starlets and dot-com millionaires to surfers and soccer moms that conversations behind the wheel must be on a headset.

quarter of European Union households surveyed by the blocs executive body have turned their backs on fixed lines in favor of mobile phones, with a fifth now making calls over the Internet.


The European Commission's survey of 27,000 homes in the 27-nation bloc found that 24 percent were using mobiles only.

The worlds top cellphone maker Nokia said it has agreed to buy social networking start-up Plazes as part of its major push into offering Internet services. Plazes provides location-aware services that people can use to plan, record, and share their social activities.

The disposal of massive numbers of unwanted mobile phones will be a key focus of a five-day meeting on waste management which started Monday in Indonesia, organisers said.


The fate of the more than three billion of the gadgets in use today will be discussed by more than 1,000 delegates from 170 countries at the meeting on the Basel Convention in Bali, a statement said.

Cellular Disposal

Virgin Mobile USA is introducing a plan with unlimited calling for $79.99 per month, helping feed the price-cutting frenzy that has washed over the cellular carriers this year.


The prepaid plan will be available July 1, the carrier said. Virgin was charging $99.99 for 1000 minutes per month with no limit on night and weekend calls.

Verizon Wireless introduced a plan with unlimited nationwide calling in February for $99.99 per month that was quickly matched by its competitors.

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Associated Press on Monday unveiled an iPhone program for accessing its newly launched service that delivers news, photos and video to mobile phones.  

The APs Mobile News Network was launched May 5 for a variety of smart phones, including the iPhone. The service displays advertising-supported local news stories from more than 100 participating newspapers as well as national and international news from AP. The reports are organized by ZIP code.

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Targeting inexperienced motorists, several states have passed laws during the past five years restricting cell phone use by teenage drivers.
But an insurance industry study being released Monday that looked at whether teens are ignoring such restrictions contends enforcement and parental influence are just as important as new laws.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety studied North Carolinas law, enacted in 2006, which fines motorists under age 18 who are caught using a cell phone.
Researchers who watched as high school students left school found that teenage drivers used their cell phones at about the same rate both before and after the law took effect. In South Carolina, which does not have a similar restriction, cell phone use by teenage drivers was about the same for both periods studied.

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After years of go-go growth, the number of people signing up for cellphone service in the USA is finally slowing.

That could spell good news for consumers as carriers turn up the marketing heat, says Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research and author of a report documenting the trend.

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Japanese youngsters are getting so addicted to Internet-linking cell phones that the government is starting a program warning parents and schools to limit their use among children.


The government is worried about how elementary and junior high school students are getting sucked into cyberspace crimes, spending long hours exchanging mobile e-mail and suffering other negative effects of cell phone overuse, Masaharu Kuba, a government official overseeing the initiative, said Tuesday.

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French researchers said on Wednesday they had invented a hydrogen fuel cell as a backup power source for mobile phones, thus easing dependence on an electricity supply to charge the gadget.


The miniature fuel cell uses a hydrogen-filled cartridge about the size of a small cigarette lighter, according to the press presentation made by the researchers at the Atomic Energy Commission.

The gadget, designed to be carried in a belt pouch, has been in gestation since 2005 with a semi-conductor group, STMicroelectronics.
The cartridges are being developed by the company Bic, which makes pens, lighters and razors.

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President Bush will announce a policy change on Wednesday to allow Americans to send mobile phones to family members in Cuba, the White House said.

The government is quietly negotiating to help cell phone customers avoid expensive fees when they cancel contracts with wireless companies.

Cell phone companies routinely charge customers $175 or more for quitting their service early. Under a proposal to the Federal Communications Commission, the wireless industry would give consumers the opportunity to cancel service without any penalty for up to 30 days after they sign a cell phone contract or until 10 days after they receive their first bill.

For nearly three in 10 households, do not even bother trying to call them on a landline phone. They either only have a cell phone or seldom if ever take calls on their traditional phone.

The federal figures, released Wednesday, showed that reliance on cells is continuing to rise at the expense of wired telephones. In the second half of last year, 16 percent of households only had cell phones, while 13 percent also had landlines but got all or nearly all their calls on their cells.For nearly three in 10 households, do not even bother trying to call them on a landline phone. They either only have a cell phone or seldom if ever take calls on their traditional phone.

Pope Benedict will text message thousands of young Catholics on their mobile phones during World Youth Day in Sydney in July, hoping going digital will help him connect better with a younger audience.

The Pope will text daily messages of inspiration and hope during the six-day Sydney event while digital prayer walls will be erected at event sites and the church will set up a Catholic social networking Web site akin to a Catholic Facebook.

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Clearwire and Sprint Nextel will combine their wireless broadband units to create a $14.55 billion communications company.


The new company, to be named Clearwire, will receive a $3.2 billion investment from Intel Corp., Google Inc., Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks. The investment is based on a target price of $20 per Clearwire share and will give the companies a 22 percent stake in the new venture.

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As more advanced wireless devices are put into use, the nations 40-year-old 911 emergency system is becoming increasingly antiquated and unable to function properly for users of the new devices, according to the 911 Industry Alliance.


Jeff Robertson, executive director of the industry group, said in an interview Wednesday that the issue is reaching crisis proportions. The problem is that consumer technology has surpassed the 911 technology, he said. Ninety-five percent of 911 call centers are analog. Emergency data gets stripped out.

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In another step in the worldwide march of Apple iPhone, the top mobile phone operator in Latin America said Wednesday that it has inked a deal to bring the multimedia gadget to more than a dozen countries starting later this year.


America Movil SAB, controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, said it plans to bring the iPhone to all of its Latin American operations but did not offer any more details about the arrangement, including whether it would be the exclusive iPhone provider in the targeted countries.

Computers that boot instantly to the exact place where you left off and mobile devices that do not need recharging for weeks. These are only some of the possibilities resulting from Hewlett-Packard research that proves the existence of what the company described as the fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering.

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Thinking of throwing out your old cell phone? Think again. Maybe you should mine it first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics -- many of which are enjoying near-record prices.


It is called urban mining, scavenging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such gems as iridium and gold, and it is a growth industry around the world as metal prices skyrocket.

Privately held digital entertainment provider CinemaNow said on Tuesday that U.S. consumers would be able to use their cell phones to view movie trailers and order full-length movies to watch on their home television or computer through its mobile website.


The service, offered on Web-capable phones at http://mobile.cinemanow.com, would let U.S. consumers immediately buy or rent a movie from their mobile phone.

Kennebec Countys emergency-alert system operates a little differently than the newly-approved FCC program.

The county system, called PageGate, enables county crisis-management officials to send emergency messages via text message, pager, e-mail and fax, but only to first responders, school administrators and municipality officials. Several hundred key numbers are stored in the PageGate system.

PageGate has been used since January 2007 to alert emergency agencies and officials when there has been severe weather or flooding. Developed with a federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security, it will continue to be used, no matter how the FCC plan will be deployed through cellular providers across Maine.

complete article about PageGate

The world has never been more connected, but in some corners, its developing a real hang-up over the ubiquitous cell phone.

Taking a cue from Frances national railway, which offers phone-free zen zones on high-speed trains, Austrias second-largest city this week began ordering public transit commuters to keep their phones on silent mode.

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Amazon TextBuyIt, which launched late Tuesday, lets people text the name of a product, its description or its UPC or ISBN to 262966 (that is Amazon on the keypad) from anywhere their cell phones work — including from inside physical stores.

If Amazon stocks matching items, the service returns two results at a time. Shoppers can immediately buy one of the first two the selections by texting back the number 1  or 2 or they can ask for more by texting the letter M.

Bell Canada on Tuesday began delivering full episodes of The Sopranos to its mobile phone subscribers as part of an agreement with HBO.

As befits a new dictator seeking to win some popularity, Raul Castro is lifting ownership restrictions for ordinary Cubans on mobile phones, computers, DVD players, even toasters.

These however do not come free. Each of Castros offerings to buy goods comes with a state-set price most Cubans have no realistic prospect of affording.

Chinese authorities said Monday they are investigating complaints that millions of cell phone users were spammed with unwanted text messages from advertisers.


The uproar over what China's media has dubbed Text-message Gate has drawn apologies from a major advertiser and the country's biggest mobile phone carrier, China Mobile. The commercial text messages were sent to more than 200 million mobile phone users through two companies — China Mobile and its smaller rival, China Unicom.

China Investigates Text Messaging Spam

The Federal Communications Commission auction for the 700-MHz wireless spectrum is over, and the winners are known. One obvious winner is the FCC itself, which exceeded its initial estimate of $10 billion with a $19.59 billion total.

Saddam Hussein deemed Iraqis could live without modern technology such as mobile phones and the Internet. Now that his regime has been swept away, they are finding they just can not get enough of it.

Nokia opened on Monday its online music store in Germany, the second such store for the worlds largest cell phone maker, which plans to open the stores in nine more countries by mid-2008.

The massacre at Virginia Tech last year sent colleges nationwide scrambling to improve how they get alerts to students during crises on campus. One solution: Text messages sent to cell phones.


But while hundreds of campuses have adopted text alerts, most students are not embracing the system — even in an age when they consider their mobile phones indispensable.

Students Slow to Adopt Text Alerts

A proposed consumer rights bill for mobile telephone service drew mixed reviews during a hearing in Congress Wednesday, with detractors saying the legislation would place too much regulation on a competitive industry.


The draft legislation, floated by Representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, calls for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to make rules requiring mobile carriers to offer unsubsidized handsets to customers, to offer service with no early termination fees and to detail charges such as termination fees.

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The battle for smartphone supremacy is about intensify after Apple Inc. said last week that developers will learn the details needed to create third-party software for its iPhone.

Apples move is viewed by analysts as a way to bolster sales of the massively popular smartphone, which have been declining lately. But its mention yesterday of additional enterprise features may have serious implications for Research In Motion BlackBerry devices.

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ATT Inc , the biggest U.S. mobile service, said on Tuesday it would offer unlimited mobile phone calls for a flat rate of $99.99 a month, hours after Verizon Wireless announced a similar plan.

Shipments of cell phones compatible with Japans mobile digital TV service have surged to more than 20 million units in fewer than two years since launch, according to industry data released last Wednesday.

T-Mobile announced on last Tuesday that it will soon begin using Yahoo as its preferred mobile search provider in Europe, ending the operators existing relationship with Google for mobile search.

Research In Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, said last Tuesday it was trying to locate the cause of a service disruption that left subscribers with only intermittent access to e-mail and other data services for three hours.


Service problems started about 3:30 p.m. EST on Monday, and lasted until about 6:30 p.m. EST, RIM said in an e-mailed statement. BlackBerry subscribers, most of whom are business people, did not lose any messages during the interruption, and voice communications were not affected.

Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia said on Tuesday it had reached an agreement with Google to incorporate the Google search engine in its handsets.

There is no doubt that on Valentines Day the text messages sent will contain anecdotal notes of affection. We even had a customer inquiry about scheduling love notes to be sent every hour on February 14th!

The most established names in telecoms, Internet and media gathered in Barcelona Monday for the Mobile World Congress, one of the worlds biggest events for the mobile phone industry.


Attention at the trade show, which runs until Thursday, is likely to focus on how to encourage users in developed countries to use their phones for more than simply making calls.

We recycle our soda cans and our newspapers, so why do not we recycle our cell phones?


U.S. consumers who bought new mobile phones recycled the old ones in the fourth quarter of 2007 at double the rate of the third quarter, a market research firm said Tuesday. But the overall number of recyclers remained low at less than one in 10.

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Widgets, or small Web applications that supply useful information direct to the desktop, could soon be appearing on your cell phone screen.

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For the next 24 hours NotePager Pro standalone software to send text messages to pagers and cell phones is featured on the Software Deal of the Day website. NotePager Pro is 50% off for only 24 hours.

This is VERY cool software discounted 45% for only 24 hours. Macro Scheduler is windows automation and scripting solutions that enhance productivity and automate processes.

Create scripts and record macros to automate and control your Windows applications, automate software processes and assign tasks to schedules, desktop shortcuts or hotkeys. Perform complex tasks with a single mouse click, or schedule your computer to perform tasks while you are away.

The powerful Macro Recorder makes it easy to create macros even if you have no programming experience. If you can do it, Macro Scheduler can automate it.

Last week, Motorola laid a bit of a bombshell on the cell phone world. The company announced it was considering a structural realignment to rejuvenate its mobile device business. Though the company had a huge hit with its ultrathin Razr V3 in late 2004, Moto has been struggling to regain solid footing over the last couple years.

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German anger over plans by Nokia to close a plant escalated on Friday, with the finance minister accusing the cellphone maker of caravan capitalism and others vowing to replace their Nokia phones.


Nokia, the worlds top cellphone maker, said earlier this week it would close the plant in the western city of Bochum because it was not competitive and move production to Romania.

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With the proliferation of mobile devices and their extensive use, past studies on health risks related to cell phone radiation need to be re-examined, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which this week asked the National Research Council to identify further research that shows the effects of long-term exposure to these devices.

Cellular Health Risks

Sprint Nextel Corp.s stock plunged Friday after the wireless carrier said it will cut 4,000 jobs and close 125 retail locations in response to a steep drop in its customer base.

Sprint shares plummeted nearly 25 percent, prompting analysts to forecast even more cuts in the coming months as the nations third-largest wireless carrier struggles to compete with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless.

The green computing trend is in full force, driven by the need to cut costs on energy on one hand and the need to get rid of old machinery on the other.


As old mobile devices begin to pile up inside companies, they will need a place to get rid of phones just like they do with PCs. One company aims to make it easy, safe and profitable to recycle those old cell phones.

It does not matter what kinds of devices companies are trying to recycle, ReCellular will recycle them.

Flowfinity Wireless, a provider of mobile enterprise productivity applications, on Thursday rolled out a tool for BlackBerry smartphones that adds GPS-location information to every transaction and tells where the data originated from.

Al-Qaida video messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri can now be downloaded to cell phones, the terror network announces as part of its attempts to extend its influence.

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Motorola Inc, which has recently lost cell phone market share, is introducing a mobile device for playing live television to expand its reach in portable consumer electronics.

Motorola said on Thursday that its DH01 device, to be showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show  in Las Vegas this week, will also play on-demand video clips and programs saved on digital video recorders.

Drivers talking on cell phones are probably making your commute even longer, concludes a new study.


Motorists yakking away, even with handsfree devices, crawl about 2 mph slower on commuter-clogged roads than people not on the phone, and they just do not keep up with the flow of traffic, said study author David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah.

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Just when you have gotten to the point where you can type on your BlackBerry upside down in the dark, they are thinking about changing the keyboard.

A patent application filed on behalf of Research in Motion was recently revealed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and it describes an angular keyboard where the keys are set at a 45-degree angle to the base of the unit.

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2007 ushered in some new releases. Including a major overhaul to PageGate. The long awaited PageGate v5 launched with a big splash mid-summer. We also expanded our support offerings offering priority support to customers who rely on PageGate for the daily operations. In addition to enhancing our software and support offerings NotePage, Inc. expanded its educational offerings by adding a knowledgebase to the website.

As we look ahead to 2008 we have a number of plans on to enhance the NotePage product line. Stay tuned and Happy New Year!

All of the entertainment options that are hot on the PC—social networking, web video, user-generated content—are downright torrid on the smallest of screens, the cell phone. New research from Deloitte & Touche finds that 47 percent of 25-41 year olds use their cell phones for entertainment, a massive surge from the 29 percent who said they did so only eight short months ago. And where the eyeballs go, there go both the ad dollars and the aspirations of many businessmen.

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Nokia has again pushed back the launch of its gaming service N-gage due to delays in software testing, a spokesman said on Thursday, in the latest blow to the Internet services ambitions of the worlds top cellphone maker. The gaming service, together with a music shop and mapping services, is one of the cornerstones of Nokias drive into mobile Internet services under its new Ovi brand.

Most parents who bought cell phones for their children this Christmas are doing so for safety reasons, according to a new survey.


An online poll of 339 parents found that 78 percent were considering getting a cell phone for their children so they could be in contact with them in case of an emergency.

Cell Phones are for Safety

A class action lawsuit was filed this week against the city of Chicago by an attorney claiming that arrests of drivers talking on their cell phones made by the citys police officers were illegal.


The lawsuit states that Chicago police officers have been arresting and ticketing thousands of drivers violating the citys cell phone ban, which was imposed almost two years ago. Drivers are typically fined $75 if caught talking on their cell phones or up to $200 if they are involved in an accident.

complete article

Dave Ritchie has a BlackBerry, but he doesn't use it as a cellphone or to receive and send e-mail. Instead, he pulls it out once a day, rolls the track wheel and clicks on it to fill out a questionnaire.


Ritchie, who turns 80 on Sunday, has COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and he is taking part in a year-long study that puts modified BlackBerrys in the hands of patients to find out more about their condition and what might be behind cyclical flare-ups.

complete article

Carriers will start shutting down the country's oldest cellular network, for analog devices, in February.

How to know if you will be affected:
Cell phones. If your phone is less than five years old, or has features like texting, Internet access or a built-in camera, it's not analog. An unknown number of analog handsets are still in use. Carriers say it's less than 1 percent of all U.S. cell phones. But with 250 million cell phones in use, that could still mean a million phones.

complete article

A Beijing city regulation clamping down on people who send text messages that spread rumors or endanger public security is a threat to freedom of expression, a watchdog group said Monday.Chinese authorities commonly use vague charges to detain dissidents.

China Human Rights Defenders, an international network of activists and rights monitoring groups, said the recent regulation on text messages raises serious concerns over the restriction of freedom of expression in China. The group said in a statement that an average of 180 million text messages are sent every day and that text messaging has become one of the most important means of receiving information unavailable in the mainstream media.

complete article

Mobile Complete on Monday launched an interactive Web service that lets mobile users test-drive popular phone models before buying them.

The company's free service, dubbed TryPhone, can be accessed via a Web site, which contains virtual mobile phones that simulate the exact same features of physical phones. The devices appear on the screen larger than normal, allowing people to press buttons, run programs, and compare different devices.

TomTom, a maker of personal navigation devices, said last week that customers can now use Googles mapping service to find business addresses and then transfer them via a computer to a TomTom gadget.

Customers of AT&Ts mobile-phone service can attach outside devices and run outside applications, the company said Thursday, following an announcement last week that Verizon Wireless would open up its network.


But AT&T's GSM-based network has been open to outside devices and applications for years, the company said. AT&T will start to publicize that information through salespeople at AT&T stores.

JetBlue plans to introduce limited in-flight e-mail and instant messaging access on one airplane on Tuesday.


Customers on the equipped plane will be able to use their laptops and Wi-Fi-enabled phones to access a customized version of Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger. BlackBerry users will also be able to check e-mail and use BlackBerrys IM client on their phones. The service is being launched in partnership with Yahoo and BlackBerry.

In the future, JetBlue hopes to offer additional services beyond e-mail and instant messaging.

China Mobile is in talks with Apple to sell the iPhone in China, the company's CEO said on Tuesday. But he's not keen on the type of revenue-sharing model that Apple has insisted on elsewhere in the world.

China's largest cell phone service provider successfully tested a transmission station on Mount Everest on Tuesday, making it possible for climbers and those on next years Olympic torch relay to make calls, a state news agency reported.


China Mobile had to hire yaks and porters to help transport equipment up to the station site at 21,325 feet, the Xinhua News Agency said.

Customers in Germany and Britain lined up to buy the iPhone as it debuted there Friday, with Apple Inc. hoping to replicate the success that the combination cell phone, music player and Web browser has seen in the United States.


Apple hopes to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, helped by its launch in Asia next year. In Germany, the phone went on sale at more than 700 T-Mobile shops, including one in Cologne that opened just after midnight with some 350 customers already waiting outside.

US entertainment giant Disney said Monday it will launch a mobile telephone service in Japan in a tie-up with Softbank Corp., hoping to use its popular characters to win a slice of the cutthroat market.


Walt Disney Japan, the local unit of Walt Disney Co., applied to the communications ministry to start Disney Mobile in spring 2008 by leasing networks from Softbank Mobile, the two companies said in a joint statement.

A trial group of Taiwanese citizens are already using their mobile phones to pay for subway rides using a contactless payment system, and they will soon start testing handsets with credit and cash cards on board.

AT&T, Verizon and Sprint are talking with Google (GOOG) about the possibility of accepting Google applications and ads on mobile devices.

The prospect of a branded device that could be sold in cellphone stores is not currently under discussion, say people familiar with the talks. They declined to be identified because Google has not yet made an announcement.

Customers of mobile-phone carriers should not have to pay early termination fees if they're called to overseas military service or have their contracts automatically extended every time they call customer support, critics said Wednesday.


Several lawmakers called for the U.S. Congress to pass a mobile-phone subscriber bill of rights during a hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

complete article

We have updated a number of settings for telecom carriers. Refer to the lists, the carriers are listed alphabetically in each section.
SNPP Settings , WCTP Settings , TAP Phone Numbers , and SMTP Settings.

The Western Union Co. said Thursday it is teaming up with cell phone service providers to develop a system that would allow consumers to transfer money from country to country via their mobile phones.

Sprint is hoping to answer ATT with a touch-screen device of its own and a faster network experience. On Tuesday, the wireless carrier announced a partnership with smartphone manufacturer HTC to offer a device to rival Apples lawsuit-riddled iPhone.

complete article

An e-mail warning consumers that cell phone numbers will soon be released to telemarketers is making the rounds again, and government officials have a key detail they would like to add: it is not true!

No. 1 cell phone maker Nokia raised eyebrows this month when it announced a big acquisition that encroaches on Garmins navigation device business. But Garmin, the leader in navigation, or GPS, devices, might respond in kind. It is said to be mulling a move into the cell phone business.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and audio product maker Bang & Olufsen has unveiled their latest joint music-mobile phone, Serenata, which holds 4G bytes of songs and has a number of other music features similar to the iPhone.

The worlds top cellphone maker Nokia has signed partnership deals with seven companies including CNN and Sony Pictures to bring video content to its top-of-the-range multimedia phones.

Verizon Wireless Inc. should be sanctioned and possibly barred from bidding in an upcoming spectrum auction for a violation of U.S. Federal Communications Commission lobbying rules, another wireless company has alleged.


Verizon has attempted to circumvent rules prohibiting it from lobbying the FCC behind the scenes to change conditions on the upcoming 700MHz auction, while, at the same time, challenging the conditions in court, alleged Frontline Wireless LLC, a likely competing bidder in the auction.

Adobe Systems Inc released new software for its popular Flash Player on Sunday that promises to bring the quality of live video on cellular phones closer to that of video on computers.

Nokia Corp. is buying U.S. navigation-software maker Navteq Corp. for around US$8.1 billion as the worlds largest mobile phone maker continues to expand services and content.

In a push to challenge rivals, including Apple Incs iTunes and iPod, Nokia unveiled new Internet services and gadgets this year to help customers download music and to play games on mobile handsets.

You might be what you drive, what you eat, and, if Samsung and Armani have their way, what you dial. Italian designer Giorgio Armani has teamed up with Samsung to design a series of consumer electronics devices, beginning with a mobile phone.


An appropriately ultraslim phone -- the size of a credit card and 9.9 millimeters thick -- was scheduled to be unveiled on Monday at Armani's spring and summer fashion show in Milan.

Complete Article

Nailah Franklin was last heard from Tuesday, when she sent an uncharacteristically vague text message to friends and family saying that she was having dinner and that she would call later. She never did.

Days earlier, Franklin had filed a police report saying she had been getting threatening phone calls.

AirCell is partnering with Virgin America to offer Wi-Fi broadband Internet services on the airlines flights in the continental U.S. in 2008.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules requiring wireless telephone providers to move toward testing location-based emergency dialing service at the local level.


The FCC late Tuesday opposed regulations that require wireless providers to phase in testing of enhanced 911, or E911, dialing services over the next five years. E911 allows emergency dispatchers to pinpoint the location of callers.
Until now, wireless providers have been able to test and report the E911 location accuracy on a regional or statewide basis. But the new rules would require wireless carriers to provide the FCC with local accuracy information.

Complete Article

NTP Inc., the patent-owning entity that got $612 million out of a suit against BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd., has hit the nation's top four wireless carriers with similar lawsuits.


The cases, filed last Friday in the federal district court in Richmond, contend that the carriers infringe on eight patents related to wireless e-mail that were granted between 1995 and 2001 to Thomas Campana, whose inventions became NTPs portfolio. The defendants are AT&T Inc., Deutsche Telekom AGs T-Mobile USA, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC.

complete article

Cellular phones do not pose short-term health risks, but it remains too soon to say whether they can cause brain cancer or whether children face greater risks than adults, British scientists said on Wednesday.


Publishing the largest UK investigation into possible health problems from mobile technology, scientists said the six-year program found no evidence that short-term mobile phone use affected brain function or could cause brain cancer.

Complete Article

Recent claims that mobile phone signals may be responsible for the decline in honeybee numbers have been quashed by research.


In April Landau University in Germany suggested that the mobile phone signals were confusing bees and leading to their death from CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). The disease paralyses bees so they then die outside the hives. It has been responsible for the deaths of between 50 and 90 percent of commercially managed bees in the U.S. alone.

A three-year scientific study conducted at U.S. universities has uncovered a virus which is thought to have come from imported bees and royal jelly and then spread through apiaries, causing the death of the bees.

complete article

The U.S. International Trade Commission last weekend opened a hearing in a case in which U.S. chip maker Qualcomm Inc accused Nokia of infringing some of its patents in cellphones using the GSM technology.


Nokia said it was confident its products did not infringe on Qualcomm patents in the case.

Anyone who has been inside a hospital probably has been cut off from relatives and colleagues because of a common rule: no cellphones. But some health care facilities are creating wireless networks to let patients, family members, physicians and staff members use their phones.

It may be something of a teenage nightmare: limits on when a wireless phone can make and receive calls and to whom, restrictions on text messages and talk time, and set allowances for ring tones and other downloads — all at a parent's fingertips.

AT&T Inc., the nations largest wireless carrier, will launch a service Tuesday giving parents that kind of wide-ranging control on almost all of its 63.7 million subscriber lines.

U.S. regulators said on Thursday they had proposed penalizing three wireless carriers which the government says failed to meet new stricter standards for being able to locate cellular telephone callers in an emergency.


The Federal Communications Commission said it proposed fines totaling $2.825 million against Sprint Nextel Corp, Alltel Corp, and United States Cellular Corp for failing to meet the new standards.

The new standards require all carriers to ensure that by the end of 2005, 95 percent of their subscribers have handsets with enhancements that would enable emergency workers to locate someone who has dialed 911 from a cellular telephone.

Carriers in Hot Water Over 911 Standards

Malaysian police have set up a special police task force to investigate mobile telephone text messages amid fears they could incite racial violence, the Star newspaper reported Friday.


The paper said police have arrested two more men for sending the messages, taking the total to four detained under a tough security law that allows them to be held without trial.

The details of the text message were not released.

Text Message Imprisons Citizens

A new patent application published by Google gives a unique insight into a possible mobile version of Google Checkout.

The Text Message Payment patent, filed on February 28th 2006, details how text messages could be used to pay for goods from vending machines and retailers as well as secure methods for validating larger payment amounts.

Many Universities are implementing campus wide messaging using cell phones and pagers as a means to alleviate security concerns. As students return to school they are becoming connected to security officials using their mobile phones and text messaging. The trend has been comforting to parents everywhere.

Apple has chosen its carriers for the iPhone launch in Europe, according to a report published Tuesday in the Financial Times. The report, citing unnamed sources, said the chosen partners are T-Mobile Deutschland for Germany, O2 in the UK, and Orange SA for France.

Police officers in London arrested a 39-year-old man using his laptop to access someone elses wireless Internet connection on Tuesday. His actions could potentially breach the Computer Misuse Act and the Communications Act, according to a Metropolitan Police Service statement.

Matsushita Electric Industrial will cover the direct costs of a battery recall affecting 46 million Nokia mobile phones, which could be as high as $172 million.


MEI is the parent company of Matsushita Battery Industrial, which manufactured the batteries.

Skype announced late Friday that all users could now again log on to the voice-over-IP service, marking the end of an outage that affected millions and lasted more than 48 hours.

The US nation emergency communication system is inadequate, and the government has come up with a solution — a nationwide wireless broadband network that will operate on a highly valuable portion of the publicly owned airwaves.

While legislators and bureaucrats have embraced the idea, they have not dedicated funds to pay for it. For that, the plan depends on private investors.

safety network

With the launch of its K770 Cyber-shot phone, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications hopes to narrow the quality gap between dedicated digital cameras and mobile phones with integrated cameras.The phone also includes a built-in media player, FM radio turner, support for Bluetooth wireless, and a battery that is good for up to 10 hours of talk time.

Nokia warned Tuesday that up to 46 million batteries used in some of its cell phones could be faulty and pose a risk of overheating.

Trendy dorm furnishings and stylish cell phones should spur U.S. college students and their parents to spend nearly 9 percent more on back-to-school items this year, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

The Federal Communications Commission voted to shake up the wireless market last week by approving rules for a big airwaves auction that would require the winner to make them accessible to any cell phone or other device.

Chinese mobile phone users can now download film clips of the Korean War and stirring military anthems to celebrate the founding of the Peoples Liberation Army.

A word about NotePage Priority Support. The goal of priority support is to give customers the opportunity to upgrade and extend their support. Time is money, so with priority support we guarantee you priority access to skilled technicians knowledgeable about PageGate software.  

Many PageGate customers use PageGate for critical and time sensitive issues, for this reason we are now offering a paid priority support option.

Details related to priority support and what is included can be found here: Priority Support Overview

Please keep in mind regular support is still available to all users both pre and post-sales free of charge.

Customers who have taken the opportunity to upgrade to PageGate v5 love the new features! If you have not already upgraded consider upgrading now.

Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 US wireless service, said it would buy Rural Cellular Corp for $757 million in cash to save on roaming costs and expand its customer base.

An Italian writer decided to put his mobile phone to good use during his daily commute to and from work -- by writing a book. Robert Bernocco, an IT professional took advantage of his travel time by writing a 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers), on his Nokia using the phone.

AT&T Inc. wiped some of the glow off Apple iPhone on Tuesday, releasing numbers that showed fewer people than expected signed up for service in the first two days of the multimedia cell phone's release.


AT&T — the iPhone exclusive carrier — said it activated 146,000 iPhones on June 29 and 30, a number that disappointed investors following some analyst forecasts that Apple would sell 500,000 or more iPhones in its first weekend.

complete article

Top U.S. telecommunications service provider AT&T Inc. said on Tuesday quarterly profit and revenue rose, helped by growth in wireless and Internet subscribers.

PageGate v5 Released
The long anticipated release of PageGate v5 has arrived. The new version of PageGate is now available. Existing customers can upgrade to the latest version for only $ 100.00!

Details on the new version can be found here: http://www.notepage.net/pagegate.htm
Upgrade Details - http://www.notepage.net/pagegate-v5.htm


Practical Use - College and University Notifications
Universities and colleges can use PageGate to notify students and staff on mobile phones and pagers in the event an urgent situation arises. We will be detailing some practical uses, and if you would like to be profiled please let us know!


New Priority Support Option
Realizing that many customers use PageGate for critical response, we have started offering a priority support option. Priority support is available to existing customers for only $ 395.00 per year. Both pre-sales and post-sales support will continue to be provided free of charge to existing and potential customers.

The priority support options is recommended and encouraged for clients interested in upgrading the level of support that they receive.
Additional Details http://www.notepage.net/priority-support.htm


New NotePage Knowledgebase
Check out the new NotePage knowledgebase. The knowledgebase contains answers to a variety of commonly asked questions. http://www.notepage.net/knowledgebase.htm


NotePager Pro and PageGate Support Tips
Remember to do backups! Backing up NotePager Pro and PageGate's data is incredibly important and needs to be done weekly, at the very least. Backing up is easy and simple, in fact, all you have to do is save one file.

In the NotePager Pro directory, you'll see a file called npp.mdb - that's the only file that needs to be backed up. For PageGate, if you'll look in the PageGate directory, you'll see a file called pagegate.mdb - that also is the only file that needs to be backed up. Backing up your data can avert disastrous situations, like having to manually input all of your carriers, recipients, and special program settings should the program need to be reloaded due to a hardware or software crash.

Note: DO NOT have either program running when you do a backup of the database. The programs must not be running in order to insure a proper backup.

If you need Carrier information, like which protocol to use or what settings go with what protocols, be sure to visit our website for an up-to-date list available. Feel free to visit http://www.notepage.net/support.htm and visit the SNPP, WCTP, SMTP, and TAP sections. If you know of carrier information we don't have, be sure to email us we are always happy to accept new information!

Just email it to support@notepage.com Having trouble sending pages out? Do the messages leave your system but never reach the cell phone or pager? Please email our support staff at support@notepage.com


Interested in Other Communication Mediums?
NotePage has another new product line, FeedForAll. FeedForAll, is used for creating, publishing and manipulating RSS feeds and podcasts. Interested in learning more? There is a great educational article section at: http://www.feedforall.com/newsletter.htm


Vista
If you are installing PageGate v5 on Vista we have set up a special set of instructions to assist you.
http://www.notepage.net/pagegate-5-vista.htm


IIS 7
Likewise, if you are using a system with IIS 7 use the following instructions to assist you
http://www.notepage.net/pagegate-iis.htm


Other New Applications from NotePage include:
FeedForAll - Software for creating and editing RSS and podcast feeds. An evaluation version is available for download from http://www.feedforall.com
RecordForAll - Audio recording and editing software. Primarily designed for podcasters. An evaluation version is available for download from: http://www.recordforall.com
SQL2RSS - A new PHP script. SQL2RSS has been released to allow users to dynamically create RSS feeds from database queries! More info at: http://www.feedforall.com/sql2rss.htm

Do not tell mainstream marketers this, but text-messaging promotions can work.

At least for Virgin Mobile, which used the power of its network of 5 million mobile customers to raise money and awareness for homeless children in America.

raising funds via text message

A group of residents in the valley in southeastern British Columbia have asked telephone company Telus Corp. not to build a planned cellphone tower in New Denver, a one-time mining boomtown that is now home to about 600 people.

If Telus decides against building the system, the economic development group plans to promote the valley'cellphone free status as a unique reason to visit or move to the region, Roberts said.

Google Inc said on Friday it would take part in a major auction of wireless spectrum airwaves, meeting a minimum required bid of $4.6 billion, if U.S. regulators added a sale condition that Google said would promote an open wireless market.


The prospect of Google participation in the auction escalates the debate over how the valuable airwaves should be used.

Ericsson missed market forecasts for second-quarter earnings as its multimedia drive produced disappointing results and revenue in its key European market stagnated, sending its shares down 5 percent.

A troubled Motorola Inc. has realigned itself as its critical cell-phone business slows down.


The company sketched out the reorganization in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday, two days before it is set to announce its second-quarter financial results. Last week, Motorola slashed its earlier revenue forecast for the quarter and predicted a larger loss, blaming lower phone sales.

The European Commission said Wednesday it had dropped its antitrust investigation into mobile phone roaming prices charged by operators in Britain and Germany after new EU rules forcing telecom companies to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad.

Wireless messaging communication is important in todays fast paced environment. PageGate allows critical alerts to be sent instantly to wireless devices regardless of the recipient's locations. PageGate supports group messaging and preprogrammed alerts, so that with the press of a single button notification can be sent to defined groups of individuals. .

To ensure delivery even in the event of connectivity loss, PageGate version 5 supports failover options and redundant connectors. Messages that cannot be delivered to their intended recipients can be automatically redirected to a backup recipient or group, or the message can be sent to the same recipient via an alternative delivery method.

Messages can be sent into PageGate via: a Windows client, web page, email, commandline, text file, serial port, modem, wireless modem, wireless phone or the Internet.

PageGate's modular design allows users to select from eight different interfaces, allowing users to scale PageGate to meet their business needs and expand as their needs change. Interfaces can be used individually or in conjunction with each other, as PageGate can receive and process messages simultaneously from multiple sources.

PageGate supports multiple telecom carriers, multiple connectors, direct connections to paging terminals, group paging, scheduled messages, repeating messages, on-call groups, and ad hoc paging, making it ideal for demanding, high-end messaging and communication.

PageGate supports a variety of delivery methods including the following protocols: Fax, GSM-AT, SMTP, SNPP, TAP, Tone, UCP and WCTP. Messages can also be delivered out the serial port, or via the Internet and TCP/IP to another computer.

Full PageGate Press Release

When maintenance workers finish a job at an Indianapolis university, they do not return to the office to fill out paperwork and pick up their next assignment. They grab their cell phones.


By punching a few buttons, they submit forms, calculate the time spent on the project and see where the next task awaits them at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

complete story

Research in Motion has obtained permission from Beijing to sell its popular Blackberry mobile email device in mainland China, the worlds biggest cell phone market, media said Wednesday.

PageGate version 5 is now available!

This powerful network messaging gateway incorporates numerous protocols for sending messages via the Internet to pagers, mobile phones and other wireless devices. Three additional delivery methods including faxing has been added, and two additional interfaces have been added. There have also been a myriad of other enhancements and feature additions including security enhancements and synchronized database support. Details on this new release can be found at:  http://www.notepage.net/pagegate-v5.htm

Realizing how important PageGate is to many of our customer's daily businesses we have also added a Priority Support option. Priority Support can be purchased for only $395.00. Priority Support will give priority to those customers who rely on PageGate for their daily operations.

Upgrades!
Existing customers can upgrade for just $100.00, regardless of their existing license. If you have purchased pageGate version 4 within 90 days of this releease, version 5 is available to you free of charge (just email us your current 5 digit serial number). Version upgrades, along with interface and connector additions can be ordered on line at:
http://www.notepage.net/upgrade-order-forms.htm or just give us a call. Keep in mind a PageGate version 5 key is required prior to upgrading!

New customers that are interested in PageGate can see the regular PageGate overview and purchase options.

The manufacturer of BlackBerry smartphones has assured the French government that their products are not vulnerable to espionage.

Canadian phone maker RIM said after France's national defense agency banned many government officials from using the devices for sensitive government purposes that the communications are protected by sophisticated encryption codes that would take billions of years to crack, The Times of London reported Wednesday.

French security officials had expressed concern that communications sent via BlackBerry could be intercepted by the U.S. National Security Agency or other foreign agencies, as the phones use mail servers located in the United States, Cnet News.com reported.

complete article

Spanish police have arrested a 28-year-old man o