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We’re excited about the successful launch of our
most advanced data product, easyedge(SM).
We experienced excellent growth
in 2003 in our short messaging service, or SMS, with revenues
for the service growing 270 percent over 2002 to $17 million.
Our next step into data is easyedge(SM),
a robust wireless-data product that offers customers access
to more than 150 downloadable applications, including
games, news, sports information, ringtones and stock quotes.
We introduced easyedge(SM) only after
a trial run in one of our markets – to ensure that
it was a service our customers would want and value. We
learned the importance of getting everything right before
we launched. That meant having the back-office support
in place, having applications that were easy to use, and
making sure our associates knew every aspect of the new
product to best support our customers.
So we gave each of our associates an easyedge(SM)
enabled handset. We asked them to use it and understand
all of its capabilities. Now, all of our associates can
effectively communicate the features and benefits of easyedgeSM
service to current and potential customers.
Supporting versatile, powerful digital
products such as easyedge(SM) requires a state-of-the-art,
reliable and expandable network. At the end of 2003, we
had upgraded more than 75 percent of our wireless network
to CDMA
1X technology, a three-year initiative we began in 2002.
CDMA 1X offers customers access to data, speeds the delivery
of information and improves the quality of the wireless
experience. We believe CDMA is technology of the future
for the wireless industry, and that’s one of the
reasons we’ve chosen it for our network. We’re
on target to complete the conversion process on time and
under budget by the end of 2004.
Besides upgrading the network technology, we improved
our market coverage by adding more than 500 cell sites
to the network in 2003, making it stronger than ever.
We also opened a new network operations center in Schaumburg,
Ill., to provide more support for our network.
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