Utah’s Department of Transportation

Utah’s Department of Transportation (UDOT) has renewed its contract for Convergys’ On-Demand Speech Self Service solution for 10 additional years.

In July 2000, the Federal Communications Commission assigned the telephone number 511 for nationwide access to traveler information services. Utah was one of the early adopter states in implementing a 511 service for traveler information, and was the first state to deploy a voice-activated 511 system. With increased travel demand, population growth, and wear on the transportation system, UDOT’s 511 system enhances the efficiency of the state’s existing roadways by improving traffic management and safety by providing accurate, real-time traveler information.

Since the initial deployment of the 511 system in Utah, the public has made nearly 2.5 million 511 calls. (Dave Kinnecom, Director of UDOT's Traffic Operations Center.)

Voice and data for Bath showroom

Renaissance Tile & Bath has implemented MegaPath’s Duet service to deliver voice and data capabilities for the company’s showroom location. Renaissance Tile & Bath, a design resource providing luxury tile, stone and bath products for the home, leverages Duet to increase productivity, connect to headquarters and decrease costs. (David Amos, Systems Administrator, Renaissance Tile & Bath.)

Voice services for New York

New York State Office of the Chief Information Officer/Office for Technology (CIO/OFT) has selected PAETEC to deliver core voice services to the State agencies on the State’s network. The agreement will represent over six million minutes per month in voice services, distributed between local and long distance service.

CIO/OFT provides statewide technology direction and centralized technology policies and services to New York State government entities. The agency’s voice and data telecommunication systems support over 90,000 users and 10,000 teleconferences per year. The local and long distance (toll) services provided from PAETEC are expected to save the state approximately $370,000 annually for the next five years, representing a 20 percent cost savings. (Dr. Melodie Mayberry-Stewart, New York State Chief Information Officer and Director of the Office for Technology.)

Parental notification system

As part of its commitment to enhance collaborative communication between school administrators and parents, the Archdiocese of Washington has elected to equip all 61 of its elementary schools with the automated telephone and Internet-based parental notification system developed by SchoolReach. Used by over 4,200 schools in 49 states, SchoolReach provides emergency notification and general school-to-home communications solutions to public and private schools. (Kelly Branaman, assistant superintendent.)

Baltimore promotes PEACE

The city of Baltimore has teamed with HipCricket to promote its “PEACE” (Pledge to Engage in Actions Considerate of Everyone) initiative – a community activist program which aims to highlight the many positive activities offered by the Department of Recreation and Parks and to create fun, safe, social activities for local youths. Through the program, the city hopes to connect directly with adolescents through their most personal possession, their mobile phone. The Peace Baltimore Text Club was created by the City of Baltimore in conjunction with various community and business partners including Waterfront Partnership, the Maryland Transit Administration, Downtown Partnership, Visit Baltimore (formerly BACVA), and Cordish and Company.

GPS services for landscaper

Sprint and ValleyCrest Landscape Companies have signed an agreement for Sprint to add GPS services to ValleyCrest’s communications toolkit at select branch locations. The location-based services (LBS) will help ValleyCrest better track employee job location and company assets for these field branches. The tool also helps the landscape and lawn maintenance giant handle payroll and route job assignments. With headquarters in Calabasas, Calif., ValleyCrest Landscape Companies is the nation’s largest integrated landscape services company with annual revenue exceeding $1 billion. It employs more than 10,000 people, operates more than 100 locations nationwide and is included on Forbes’ list of America’s largest private companies. (Gary King, manager of Telecom, ValleyCrest.)

VDSL2 technology across 14 states

Qwest International has plans to roll out VDSL2 technology across its networks in 14 states; doubling its connection speeds for qualifying residential and small business customers. The new service offers peak download speeds of 40Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps. Qwest intends to expand the service over the coming months to 23 markets covered by the company’s fibre-optic backbone network.

St Louis-based investment firm networks

Online investment firm Scottrade (http://www.scottrade.com/) has expanded the nationwide data and national network services it uses from Qwest Communications International Inc. with a new five-year agreement. St Louis-based Scottrade recently selected Qwest’s dedicated GeoMax and QWave data networking solutions to provide ultra secure, high-bandwidth data circuits connecting its new Phoenix-area data center to Scottrade headquarters in St. Louis. The company has more than 400 branch offices nationwide that use Qwest iQ Networking services based on MPLS technology for wide-area networking. (Ian Patterson, chief information officer, Scottrade.)

DHL telecommunications services

Deutsche Post DHL has announced the signing of a five-year agreement with AT&T to provide telecommunications services. The agreement is part of a worldwide Deutsche Post DHL group initiative to realize opportunities for service enhancement and cost optimization in the provision of telephony and networking services.

“The opportunities for reducing telecoms costs while improving service and network performance are significant,” said Stephen McGuckin, managing director of IT services at Deutsche Post DHL. “This initiative will help us pave the way for more cost efficiency throughout our U.S. operations and provide a next generation platform to transform and enhance our network services in the U.S. over the next five years.”

The new contract with AT&T covers Deutsche Post DHL’s Express, DHL Supply Chain, Global Forwarding, and Global Business Services divisions in the U.S. The service is expected to go live by late 2009. Through telecommunications agreements, Deutsche Post DHL is expected to save more than 170 million euros over five years.

Wireline and wireless solutions for Pinnacle

Sprint and Pinnacle Airlines have reached an agreement for Sprint to provide a suite of integrated wireline and wireless solutions to Pinnacle, one of the airline industry’s largest regional carriers. The agreement encompasses a wide range of voice and data services. Wireline services include MPLS network services, SIP Trunking, Mobile Integration and international long distance, and wireless services include mobile broadband, Wireless WAN with DataLink, Land Mobile Radio (LMR) and in-building coverage. Sprint will supply more than 1,100 voice and data devices to support the converged solution. www.sprint.com.

Pinnacle Airlines Corp.’s two operating subsidiaries, Pinnacle Airlines, Inc. and Colgan Air, Inc., have 6,000 employees and fly over 1,000 daily flights transporting 13 million passengers a year to 144 cities and towns in North America. (Jayne Pendergast, Director of Information Technology for Pinnacle Airlines Corp.)

Promoting to mobile phone’s idle screens

Ace Hardware is promoting popular home maintenance products to mobile consumers through mobile phone’s idle screens. A national campaign launched around Ace’s Memorial Day Sale invited consumers to visit their local Ace Hardware to take advantage of deals. The campaign was executed by Horizon Media and generated an average CTR of 18%. In addition, consumers that viewed the campaign were nearly 30% more likely to visit an Ace Hardware retail store. Mobile Posse’s innovative mobile idle screen advertising platform powered the campaign.

The Mobile Posse solution also allows advertisers to conduct short form surveys through the mobile idle screen. In follow-up to the Ace campaign, users were asked whether they had visited an Ace Hardware store within the past seven-to-ten days. Users that viewed the campaign were 29% more likely to have visited an Ace Hardware retail store than users that did not view the campaign. These results demonstrate that mobile idle screen ads and sponsorships can help to drive traffic to retail locations. Consumers opt-in to Mobile Posse’s free application to receive informative and fun content, along with valued offers from local and national retailers. Full-screen offers are targeted and interactive, and can feature rich graphics and customer surveys. Ace Hardware has 4,600 hardware, home center and building materials stores that generate annual retail sales of more than $12 billion. www.acehardware.com. (Andrew Vitellaro, Sr. Creative Specialist at Ace Hardware.) www.mobileposse.com

$30,000 in one quarter through fuel savings

Wireless Matrix and PeakView Solutions, LLC have announced a successful deployment at NewWave Communications, a Multiple System Operator (MSO) serving customers across six states. Since deploying Wireless Matrix’s FleetOutlook solution parallel to PeakView Solutions’ DispatchView, as part of its Phase 2 mobile workforce management solution in mid-March, the MSO has already seen its fuel usage reduced significantly, about 4,200 gallons per month across 175 technicians. This reduction has led to an estimated cost savings of $30,000 over the first quarter of deployment. www.wirelessmatrix.com www.peakviewsolutions.com

State of Utah selects Qwest

The State of Utah (www.utah.gov) has chosen Qwest Communications International Inc. to deliver a cost-saving, converged voice and data network. With Qwest’s Ethernet solution, state and local government and businesses in Utah have access to additional bandwidth speeds to help satisfy increasing public demand for online services. Qwest began connecting 300 locations in Salt Lake City and along Utah’s Wasatch Front using Qwest’s Metro Optical Ethernet (QMOE) data networking platform. Thirty government sites have already been connected as part of the 3-year, $7.2 million agreement. (Stephen Fletcher, CIO, State of Utah.)

$4.7 billion loan and grant programme for broadband

US vice president Joe Biden has outlined a state-funded $4.7 billion loan and grant programme designed to fund the deployment of broadband infrastructure in underserved areas, the Associated Press reports. Biden launched the programme on 1 July, saying, ‘Getting broadband to every American is a priority for this administration.’ The £4.7 billion investment is part of £7.2 billion included in the federal stimulus package to improve rural internet access. The US Department of Commerce will consider applications for funding that propose to provide wired or wireless access starting at low-end DSL speeds, but will give priority to ones promising high speed access. An area qualifies as being “underserved” and therefore eligible for grants, if half or fewer of households can get wired broadband today. Companies can apply to the scheme from 14 July and the first round of funding will be awarded in September this year.

iPhone application statistics

Wizzard Media has released figures today showing an increase in iPhone App sales, podcast downloads and podcast audiences from iPhone users for the first weekend after the launch of Apple’s new iPhone 3GS. Comparing with the previous weekend, the Wizzard Media Network saw an increase in audiences using the iPhone to request podcast episodes of 29% in the U.S. and 27% worldwide. As a result, there was an increase in podcasts downloaded from the network by iPhone users of 66% in the U.S. and 50% worldwide. Revenues for Wizzard’s iPhone App sales showed an average increase of 12% worldwide for the weekend after the new iPhone launch, compared to the previous weekend. Financial analyst projections for Apple’s iPhone sales average over 20 million units for 2009 (RBC, Piper Jaffrey, Citi).

AdMob’s May 2009 Mobile Metrics Report shows in less than one year, the Apple App Store has grown to more than 50,000 applications. Highlights from the May 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report: five percent of applications had more than 100,000 active users in May 2009; 14 percent of applications had between 10,000 - 100,000 active users, representing 322 applications; 54 percent of applications had less than 1,000 active users, representing 1,244 applications; the average iPhone user in AdMob’s network accessed four applications in May; five days after its launch, the iPhone 3.0 Operating System (OS) represented 44 percent of iPhone ad requests. In contrast, only 1 percent of iPod touch requests came from devices running the iPhone 3.0 OS. AdMob reached 15.1 million unique users on iPhone and iPod touch devices on 2,309 applications in its network in May, the vast majority of which were free to download.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing access Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines has joined forces with Sprint to offer toll-free TTY (teletypewriter) and video relay access, giving deaf and hard-of-hearing customers direct access to Southwest Airlines customer service. Deaf, hard-of-hearing, and speech disabled customers needing to call Southwest Airlines can dial a dedicated toll-free TTY telephone number. That number is answered by a Sprint relay agent who immediately connects to the Southwest Airlines customer service representative. The Sprint relay agent relays information between the Customer Service representative and the relay user in English or Spanish.

Video Relay customers can access the service using a videophone by calling SWAVRS.TV to reach a video interpreter who will connect to Southwest Airlines. By providing video access, those whose native language is American Sign Language (ASL) can communicate with a video interpreter in ASL who then acts as the ‘voice’ to Customer Service representatives. Sprint Video Relay Service (VRS) is offered at no cost to deaf and hard-of-hearing customers who use a videophone or web camera with a computer to connect with a qualified Sprint video interpreter who interprets the call in English or Spanish. (Lance Morton, director of Automation Resources for Customer Support & Services for Southwest Airlines.)

First operators intending to deploy LTE named

The tally of wireless operators committed to deploying LTE (Long Term Evolution) networks and offering LTE-based services to their subscribers in 2010 has climbed to at least 12, according to a study from ABI Research. By the following year nearly 34 million users worldwide are forecast to subscribe to the new ultra-fast data services, which promise speeds rivaling those available via cable or DSL. “Spectrum availability is the primary factor impacting deployment plans,” comments senior analyst Nadine Manjaro. “In countries where telecommunications regulators are making appropriate spectrum available, many operators have announced plans to launch LTE. These include the US, Sweden, China, and others. Where no such spectrum allocations exist, operators are postponing LTE plans.” The first operators intending to deploy LTE include Verizon Wireless, MetroPCS Wireless, and U.S. Cellular in the United States.

Exclusive deals - review?

Four U.S. have senators asked the Federal Communications Commission to review exclusive deals between wireless-phone companies and handset makers to see whether the arrangements unfairly restrict consumer choice. The FCC should “act expeditiously” if it finds exclusive deals adversely affect competition, said the lawmakers, who included Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet. AT&T Inc. has an exclusive arrangement to offer Apple Inc.’s iPhone on its network, and Sprint Nextel Corp. has sole rights for Palm Inc.’s Pre. The iPhone made up 41 percent of AT&T’s 11.8 million smart-phone subscriptions, ComScore said. Sprint, the third-largest U.S. wireless operator, has exclusive rights to the Pre through at least the end of the year.

Interactive Voice Response

The City of Philadelphia is using two customized NEC Interactive Voice Response (IVR) applications to help improve customer service and reduce call center costs. The first system was designed for the Revenue Department to help with information associated with real estate taxes for residents. The second was designed for The Board of Revision of Taxes, the agency that establishes property values which serve as the basis for real estate taxes levied by the City. Residents can access the IVR systems to check their tax balance, lien information, request receipt copies and gather information needed to complete tax appeals applications. Using the IVR system, callers can confirm their information and then begin the process for filing an appeal and addressing tax issues. Additional information such as current market value and assessed value of their homes, as well as the last recorded title date and sales price, is also available. (Pam Scott, information management analyst, City of Philadelphia.)

ATN to take on 800,000 customers

Atlantic Tele-Network (ATN) is to pay Verizon Wireless $200 million for wireless spectrum licenses and network infrastructure - so acquiring assets serving over 800,000 customers. Verizon is required to divest these assets as part of the regulatory approvals granted for its purchase of Alltel earlier this year.