Word: pcs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...driving force behind such forecasts is a new digital service called PCS (for personal communications system) that was created by the Federal Communications Commission. The agency took a piece of the airwaves in the mid-frequency spectrum that had been used for police calls and other public purposes and turned it over to industry for cell-phone service--at a price. The government collected $20.3 billion in granting PCS licenses for nearly 500 markets from New York City to Liberal, Kansas. Michael Elling, an analyst for Prudential Securities, estimates that PCS systems will create a 15-fold increase in wireless...
...PCS means more than the addition of new frequencies to the wireless spectrum. Unlike many older systems, which send a voice in a single stream as analog waves, PCS uses digital signals that break sound into discrete bits--the 1s and 0s that run computers. Digital technology enables PCS to offer such features as E-mail, caller ID and paging as well as compact-disc-quality sound and greater security from wireless eavesdroppers and phone-number thieves. (Digital technology is also becoming available in non-PCS formats...
...annual revenues just four years earlier. The industry's next wave of growth is being propelled by falling prices that put the cost of a machine closer to that of a household appliance. Houston-based Compaq introduced its Presario 2100 for $999 in February. Others have low-priced PCs too. Now the industry is bracing for a quantum leap in demand as people who previously couldn't afford a computer rush to buy one on the notion that one day a PC will be as indispensable as a car or TV. Compaq wanted Gateway so it could speedily add capacity...
Ellison's dealmaking is aimed at forcing a revolution onto the PC industry. Today's software, he argues, is too complicated and loaded with gizmos no one ever uses. Worse, at several thousand dollars a pop, personal computers are anything but personal. Instead, he says, "PCs should be more like pencils," by which he means cheap, user-friendly and above all ubiquitous...
...hype and glory surrounding the Net these days, occasional great ideas do make it to market nearly unnoticed. For instance, Homegate, an Internet connection service that quietly launched last week in 760 cities around the globe. Homegate's new software lets travelers connect their PCs to the Net from anywhere with a local phone call. An executive from Anchorage can jack in from Jakarta for about 10[cents] a minute, instead of the $20 a minute it would cost to dial Alaska...