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Story
///
05
Sprint Agrees to Buy Nextel
The
$33.8-billion proposed deal would create a company
with 38.5 million customers
-----
Furthering the consolidation
of the wireless industry, Sprint Corp. on Wednesday
unveiled plans to acquire rival Nextel
Communications Inc. in a cash and stock deal worth
$33.8
billion.
-----Sprint would remain the
country's No. 3 cellular provider, but Nextel's
15.3 million high-revenue subscribers would make
the combined company a stronger competitor in a
winnowing field. The new company &emdash; to be
called Sprint Nextel &emdash; would have 38.5
million customers, compared with Cingular Wireless'
47.6 million subscribers and Verizon Wireless' 42.1
million.
-----For Nextel, which has
won over business users with its walkie-talkie
function, the deal would save the company from
having to spend as much as $3 billion on network
upgrades so that customers could use their phones
to send e-mail and other data at high
speeds.
-----In an announcement that
had been anticipated for about a week, Sprint and
Nextel executives portrayed the deal as a merger of
equals that would result in $12 billion in savings
over three
years.
-----Many analysts looked
favorably on the deal, although it doused rumors of
an even bigger consolidation scenario &emdash;
Verizon buying Sprint &emdash; that had helped run
up Sprint's stock
price.
-----Sprint shares fell
$1.08 to $24.02 on the New York Stock Exchange on
Wednesday, while Nextel shares dropped $1.29 to
$28.70 on
Nasdaq.
-----"It was the old 'buy on
the rumor, sell on the news' situation," said Zach
Wagner, an analyst with Edward Jones in St.
Louis.
-----Investors may also have
been skeptical about some of the cost-cutting
forecasts made by Sprint and Nextel executives,
said analyst Albert Lin of American Technology
Research in San
Francisco.
-----"These are two
companies that have very different cultures and
different technologies," Lin said. "Saving $1.2
billion to $1.5 billion in the first year &emdash;
which they said they could do &emdash; by putting
them together is a tall
order."
-----Though cost savings are
important, Sprint Chief Financial Officer Robert
Dellinger said the biggest long-term benefit for
the company would be the addition of Nextel's
all-wireless customer
base.
-----"Now we get about 50%
of our revenue from wireless," he said. "Putting us
together gives us a company that gets about 74%
from
wireless."
-----And wireless is the
fastest-growing part of the telecom business,
Dellinger
said.
-----At least part of that
growth is expected to come from data transmission.
Sprint is already building a next-generation
network for data. Nextel hasn't started building
its own next-generation network; by merging with
Sprint, it would save an estimated $2 billion to $3
billion, said Nextel Chief Operating Officer Tom
Kelly.
-----If the transaction is
approved by regulators and shareholders, the
company would spin off Sprint's local telephone
business while retaining its long-distance
customers. Nextel spokeswoman Audrey Schaefer said
the fiber-optic network at the heart of Sprint's
long-distance business was a valuable long-term
asset.
-----Consumer advocates
fretted that a Sprint-Nextel combination, coming on
the heels of Cingular's $41-billion acquisition of
AT&T Wireless, would ultimately lead to higher
prices. If the deal goes through, the top three
wireless carriers would serve about 75% of the
country's cellular
customers.
-----"We fear the cellphone
market will start to function the way the cable and
satellite market has, where prices go up year in
and year out due to lack of competition," said Gene
Kimmelman, director of public policy at Consumers
Union in Washington.
----- Under terms of the
deal, Nextel shareholders would receive stock and a
small amount of cash, with a total value equal to
1.3 shares of Sprint. The exact amount of stock and
cash will be determined at the close of the deal,
though the companies said that if the calculation
were made Wednesday, each Nextel share would be
worth about 1.28 Sprint shares plus about 50
cents.
-----Top jobs in Sprint
Nextel would be split among the two companies.
Sprint Chief Executive Gary Forsee would hold that
job at Sprint Nextel, and Nextel CEO Timothy
Donahue would become the combined company's
chairman. The board would consist of 12 directors,
six from each
company.
-----Sprint Nextel would
have its executive headquarters in Nextel's current
home of Reston, Va., and its operational
headquarters would be in Overland Park, Kan., where
Sprint is based.
///
07
- Today's Puzzle: Are
the survivors of Government Frequency Take Over's
commencing in 1908, entitled to payments for their
$32 Billion in losses? If you're one of the
millions of Nathan B. Stubblefield • Marconi
• Ambrose Fleming • Reginald Fessenden
• Tesla • DeForest • Armstrong
• Alexanderson and Farnsworth fans who think
so . . . the following story will help you explain
why . . . and the possible legal proceedures.
See
SMART-DAAF Boys.
Surviving
family members of Jewish Hungarian Nazi war
victims,
destroyed by several
Governments during war time, seeks payment from
U.S.A. -- for loss of tangible property. For the
Art work and property lost and stolen during the
end of the World War II era, SEE
VRA Movie, LOST WOMEN OF ITALY.
-----
Now 60 years later the U.S.
is facing a critical court hearing this week in
December 2004. Justice Department attorneys and
lawyers representing Hungarian survivors who have
filed the only Holocaust reparations suit against
the U.S. government are far from reaching a
settlement, parties close to the negotiations
said.
-----The survivors sued in
U.S. district court in Miami in May 2001. They are
seeking compensation for property seized by the
Nazis in 1944 and recovered by the U.S. Army a year
later but never returned to the original
owners.
----- Justice
Department lawyers have maintained that the suit
should be thrown out for two primary reasons: The
statute of limitations had run out years before the
suit was filed, and the government was entitled to
immunity.
-----In August 2002,
however, U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz said
that the plaintiffs were entitled to have the
statute of limitations waived, and that the
government's immunity argument was only partially
valid.
-----Seitz has been urging
the two sides to settle the case. She ordered
mediation this year, and Fred F. Fielding, a
prominent Washington lawyer, was selected as
mediator.
-----Fielding, who worked in
the White House during the Nixon and Reagan
administrations and served on the Sept. 11
commission, said recently: "The only thing I can
tell you is that we're still at the table. There is
a potentially defining moment coming up." He was
referring to Monday's hearing on the government's
motion to dismiss the
case.
-----A lawyer who has been
involved in the negotiations said: "Based on where
we are today, it is unlikely that there will be a
settlement by next week, because the sides are too
far apart." The lawyer, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said the sides were divided on two key
issues -- the amount of a settlement and what the
government would say about its responsibility for
events that occurred in
1945.
-----Rabbi Israel Singer,
chairman of the World Jewish Congress, said he had
participated in a mediation session on Dec. 6 in
Washington. He said the session had "begun to bring
the parties to an understanding of the other side's
position." However, he added, the two sides were
nowhere near agreement on a settlement "sufficient
to even address the symbolic nature" of a payment
he expected the government eventually to
make.
-----The Justice Department
attorneys, Singer said, "have to understand that
there are Holocaust survivors in this group who
have thrice been harmed -- once by the Nazis, once
by the Communists and once by the
U.S.".
-----Members of Congress who
have been urging the Bush administration to settle
the case have expressed anger and frustration about
a lack of
progress.
-----"The response of the
Bush administration thus far has been disgraceful,"
said Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.). "It is
incomprehensible why the Bush administration has
not followed the same rules and guidelines that we
have correctly demanded of other countries and
companies" in Holocaust-related litigation, he
said. "It's a stain on America."
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
(D-N.Y.) said that if the case was not resolved
promptly, members of the Senate ought to question
White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales about it
next month in hearings on his nomination for
attorney general -- "a post that can and should
play a direct role in resolving an issue affecting
thousands of aging survivors who are sadly dying as
their case continues to
languish."
-----On Friday, a dozen
members of Congress sent a letter to Gonzales
urging him to get the case resolved "quickly and
fairly." The group took particular umbrage at the
Justice
Department.
-----Led by Rep. Anthony D.
Weiner (D-N.Y.), the lawmakers emphasized that the
department, in its attempts to get the case
dismissed, had "attacked the survivors themselves
for lacking 'due diligence' in failing to bring the
case before 2001, though the facts of the
mishandling [of stolen goods] were only
publicly revealed by a commission in
1999.".
-----No Deal Near in
Holocaust Survivors'
Suit.
-----Hungarian Jews, in a
case against the U.S., are seeking compensation for
property seized by the Nazis and recovered by the
U.S.
Army.
-----The Justice Department
declined to
comment.
-----White House spokeswoman
Erin Healy said that Gonzales would reserve any
comments on the issue until his confirmation
hearing.
-----Although most of the
lawmakers pressing the issue are Democrats, some
Republicans have joined in. Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen of Florida has urged several key
members of the administration -- including Karl
Rove, the president's chief political advisor -- to
settle the
case.
-----"We've asked the world
to provide restitution to survivors," she said
recently. "Now it is our
turn.".
-----The case stems from the
Nazis' seizure of more than $200 million in gold,
jewelry, Oriental rugs, fabrics and artwork --
among them paintings by Durer and
Rembrandt.
-----The spoils were loaded
on dozens of rail cars -- which came to be known as
the Gold Train -- bound for Germany. However, the
train was abandoned by the Nazis in Austria and
recovered by the U.S. Army. Most of the treasures
vanished, according to a report issued by the
Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust
Assets in the U.S. in
1999.
-----The plaintiffs assert
that the U.S. knew or could have discovered the
provenance of much of the booty and had acted
illegally by failing to return the goods to the
rightful owners, particularly since the Army had
inventories prepared by the
Nazis.
-----The plaintiffs are
seeking a full accounting from the government and
as much as $10,000 in damages each. It has been
estimated that there could be 30,000
beneficiaries.
-----Reports released by the
commission in 1999 and 2000 stated that the chief
U.S. military official in western Austria at the
end of World War II had requisitioned a hoard of
the goods from a U.S. military warehouse in
Salzburg, Austria -- including enough china and
silverware for 45 people, a dozen silver
candlesticks, 30 sets of table linens, carpets and
furs.
-----The special U.S.
commission report called the Gold Train affair "an
example of an egregious failure of the United
States to follow its own policy regarding
restitution of Holocaust victims'
property.".
-----The Justice Department
has countered that because some Hungarian Jews knew
as early as 1947 that the U.S. Army had taken
possession of the Gold Train, the six-year statute
of limitations for filing such a case expired no
later than
1953.
-----In court papers filed
in June, the government said the U.S. "bears
neither the legal nor the moral responsibility" for
the plundered valuables of the Hungarian
Jews.
-----Singer said he was
saddened by the government's position. The U.S.
"fought against the Nazis and liberated people in
concentration camps," Singer said. But some members
of the government "fell short" in returning the
seized possessions that are the subject of the
survivors' lawsuit. He said the government should
settle the case and make a formal
apology.
-----"We are a nation strong
enough to say 'I'm sorry,' " Singer said
///
Center
Page / Nathan
B. Stubblefield,,
Timeline
NB
Stubblefield, NBS100
03
- How They Promoted and Sold the Wireless
Telephone, (Radio} in 1908 -
A perspective by R. Burt (Copyright 1908, by
United Wireless Telegraph Company
(DeForest)
"The
Aerogram" was a publication issued by the United
Wireless Telegraph Company, and as such might have
been used to give investors accurate information
about growth opportunities for the company.
However, because United Wireless was being run
mainly as a stock promotion scheme, more often the
magazine merely drummed up enthusiasm for stock
sales, by getting potential investors excited about
developments where the company actually had no real
plans. Much of the speculation in this article
about the future possibilities for audio radio
communication and broadcasting appear to reflect
the ideas of United Wireless' former scientific
director Lee DeForest, who had been forced out of
the company in late 1906. (The photograph of the
navy officer actually is from an installation by
the Radio Telephone and Telegraph Company, the new
company which DeForest formed after his expulsion.)
In spite of the talk about potential innovations,
and the claim that "The United Wireless Telegraph
Company is developing and protecting by patents,
three distinct wireless telephones", the company
actually did not do any significant developmental
work in wireless telephony before it went bankrupt
in 1912.
The Aerogram, November, 1908, pages
139-141:
THE WIRELESS
TELEPHONE
By R. Burt
(Copyright 1908 by The Aerogram Publishing
Company)
When one realizes the
actuality of telephoning without wires, and the
mind turns to what it may mean in the future, about
all that it is possible to immediately express, is
a "gasp." It is almost beyond comprehension and the
thinking of it, at first, is a mental jumble, that
can only be brought to orderly understanding by
comparative figures, obtained from sources that can
be partially-appreciated by reason of daily
association.
Most people imagine they
know all about the telephone because they use it
frequently and because it appears to be so simple.
They have little to do with its actual operation,
therefore they do not appreciate the immensity of
the telephone systems, all of which have been
developed during the past 32 years. The following
figures will aid the imagination in an attempt to
estimate what the "wireless" 'phone will mean when
at some future time all telephoning is done without
the use of wires:
|
Total amount
of capital of telephone companies
(Bell and Independent), operating
in the United States,
about . . .
|
$2,000,000,000
|
|
Two of the
larger "Bell" Companies have over
$200,000,000 capital each and
nineteen companies have from
$10,000,000 to $50,000,000
each.
|
|
|
Total number
of Bell
exchanges . . .
|
4,889
|
|
Miles of wire
on poles and in buildings
(Bell) . . .
|
2,754,571
|
|
Miles of wire
underground
(Bell) . . .
|
3,241,471
|
|
Miles of wire
under water
(Bell) . . .
|
11,690
|
|
Total miles of
wire
(Bell) . . .
|
6,007,732
|
|
Total circuits
(Bell) . . .
|
1,384,175
|
|
Total stations
(Bell) . . .
|
2,727,289
|
|
Total
employees
(Bell) . . .
|
90,324
|
|
Total number
of instruments in use
(Bell) . . .
|
7,107,386
|
|
Total number
of messages per year
(Bell) . . .
|
5,305,900,000
|
|
Average daily
calls per subscriber
(Bell) . . .
|
6
|
|
"Independent"
companies in the United
States . . .
|
9,000
|
|
Number of
instruments in use
(Independent) . . .
|
3,500,000
|
|
Number of
messages annually
(Independent) . . .
|
3,700,000,000
|
|
Number of
telephone shareholders in the
United
States . . .
|
550,000
|
|
Increase in
business per
year . . .
|
15% to
20%
|
|
Total yearly
income, Bell and Independent,
about . . .
|
$450,000,000
|
|
The field on land is not
nearly covered at present by the wire telephone
systems and without the advent of wireless
telephony it is reasonable to expect that the
business of the wire companies would double in the
next ten years. The wireless phone, by reason of
eliminating the enormous cost of maintaining the
poles and wires, should eventually not only usurp
the business of the wire 'phone on land, but
greatly extend its present utility and profits. The
wireless telephone will also cover the seas, lakes
and waterways, supplementing the wireless telegraph
over short distances and will be installed on all
the smaller craft. Inhabitants of islands in the
lakes and rivers and along the coasts will be
available as subscribers and have the advantage of
a telephone system, where they now have no adequate
means of rapid communication whatsoever.
The Bell Telephone has been
most profitable from an investor's standpoint,
inasmuch as those who obtained an interest in it,
during the early period of its development, and
retained their interest, have been made comfortably
wealthy by their small investment. A $100
investment made thirty years ago, has paid $201,000
in dividends. Bell Telephone stock advanced in
twelve months, after it had proven its commercial
value, from a few dollars a share to $3,200 per
share.
The question naturally
arises "How will it be possible for so many
wireless 'phones to be operated in a city like New
York?" It is impossible to say just now. If the
inventors of the wire telephone apparatus and its
pioneers could have known twenty-five years ago how
to accomplish, with the wire telephone, what is
being done in "wire telephony" to-day, do you for
one moment suppose they could have expended the
years of labor they have in overcoming the many
difficulties and obstacles, that they have had to
contend with? There really should be no more
difficulties to overcome, in extending the use of
the wireless 'phone, than there were in developing
the wire telephone. Also, it should be remembered,
that engineers working the wireless 'phone have
benefited considerably by the knowledge gained from
the experience and difficulties encountered and
surmounted by the engineers in the extension of the
wire telephones. The questions still unanswered in
one's mind are,--How is it done? How can it be
possible? Will not the hundreds of thousands of
messages sent out into the ether get "mixed,"
without the wires to guide or retain them along a
well-defined course? The mind does go agroping, and
it is not surprising. But, after grasping the
following figures regarding the ether waves, by
which a wireless message is transmitted and
received, it would seem, that with so great a
"flexibility" and with a more intimate knowledge of
the ether currents and their actions, some means
will be devised of overcoming the possibility of
"mixed" talk.
Ether, which is everywhere,
vibrates normally at 650,000,000 vibrations per
second; the action of some rays of light increases
the normal vibration up to 850,000,000 per second.
These ether vibrations transmit an electric charge
from one particle to another with such rapidity,
that the wave travels at the rate of 186,000 miles
per second or a distance equaling seven and
one-half times the distance around the world.
Therefore, a wireless message with sufficiently
far-reaching force, would envelop the world and
also lap over halfway round again in one-tenth of a
second.
Every electrical discharge
from lightning exerts an electrical force
sufficiently powerful enough to send a wireless
wave throughout the entire world, and every
discharge of electricity in commercial use also
emits a "wireless wave." It is also probable that
all chemical action releases a minute wireless wave
and so on until, as a matter of fact, there are
already millions of wireless waves mingling and
intermingling in and over New York City at the
present time.
Yet, a wireless wave
message transmitted from a point a thousand miles
away, rushes into this maelstrom and "finds" the
station for which it is intended and records the
intelligence it brings. There are already more than
a hundred wireless stations, on shore and on boats,
transmitting messages, everyone of which at the
same time must pass the antenna wires of a wireless
station in New York. A visit to one of the four
"United" stations in New York City will show the
operator calmly taking down the message intended
for that station. He is operating and pays no
attention to the other messages coming down over
the same wire to his receiver, for he has tuning
devices and other mechanical instruments, which
disclose to him only the one message intended for
his particular station.
Isn't it wonderful? Just
think a minute! It is only necessary for the
wireless telegraph and the wireless telephone to be
developed and fully extended, to entirely dispense
with the unsightly and costly wires.
Let's look a little further
into the future, and see the time when the wireless
'phone will be in general use. It will be used in
business and private affairs just as the wire
'phone is in use to-day. In such use one
subscriber, to talk to another will have to call
"central" or will probably be connected by an
"automatic central." The wireless message sent from
one central station, in a special tone or to be
more exact having a special electrical
"resistance," may be received in every home, within
the range of station, by every subscriber having a
receiver corresponding to the electrical resistance
of the sending station. By this means it will be
possible to send news, stock quotations, lectures,
monologues, music, merchants bargain announcements,
etc., etc., broadcast for whomsoever may subscribe
for that service. The man of moderate means may
have Grand Opera music and the best of
entertainment always at his elbow for such members
of his family as may care to listen--or each member
of the family can choose the form of entertainment
which their fancy, at the time, may dictate. Will
not this be a Godsend as a means of making peace
with the neighbor who objects to the phonograph,
which will find its way to the scrap-heap with the
advent of the wireless telephone.
Yes! This is all a dream
now, but, if a reader could join Rip Van Winkle's
brigade and wake up twenty years hence, he would
probably find it a dream come true. We have much to
learn and there are still some people who scoff at
the future possibilities of all scientific
discoveries.
What has been done towards
developing and perfecting the wireless telephone?
For one thing, voices and music have been
transmitted distinctly for a distance of a hundred
miles or more. Some of the most prominent
Governments of the world already have some of their
battleships equipped with the device and report
fairly satisfactory service. The United States
Atlantic Fleet, now on its voyage around the world,
has the wireless 'phones installed for use in
connection with giving and receiving orders,
reports, etc., from the flagships to the other
vessels.
The United Wireless
Telegraph Company is developing and protecting by
patents, three distinct wireless telephones, in
order to protect its interests in the development
of wireless communication. They report progress to
the extent of transmitting voices and music for 30
miles over the land and 100 miles over the sea.
These 'phones are part of the assets of the United
Company and the strong organization of that company
will extend the telephone as well as the telegraph.
With its telegraph already established and
commercially successful, the day should not be far
distant when its 'phone will be brought into
commercial service and used as an adjunct to its
wireless telegraph equipment.
But remember! The wireless
telephone is in its early infancy and that there is
a considerable difference and lapse of time between
"having," a wireless telephone that merely
operates, and having an established wireless
telephone system that produces a net profit revenue
from actual commercial use.
The wireless telegraph has
gone through many vicissitudes, in order to gain
its present position. Many wireless telegraph
companies have been started and much wireless stock
has been sold to the public. Only one wireless
telegraph company has thus far succeeded. The
bright future and enormous possibilities of the
wireless 'phone may attract many promoters and many
investors. Many companies may be formed and the
printing presses be kept busy printing certificates
to be issued and representing hundreds of thousands
of shares of stock. All is not gold that glitters.
One should be most careful in making an investment
and should not risk money too carelessly, neither
should one allow enthusiasm to blind one's
judgment. The wireless telephone will win fortunes
for many, but may also prove a pitfall to some. Do
not invest recklessly; do not jump at the first
offering made by stocksellers; investigate; be
cautious.
ByLines
Nathan
B. Stubblefield, Murray State University,
More
about Murray State, and the NBS
"Teléph-on-délgreen" Campus
////
/Respectfully
Submitted
Josie
Cory
Publisher/Editor
TVI Magazine
TVI
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BBC, LA Times, NY Times, VRA's D-Diaries, Press
Releases, They Said It Tracking Model, and
SmartSearch were used in compiling and ascertaining
this Yes90 news report.
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