ARDIS Announces New Pricing; Slashes More Than 25 Percent Off Current Structure
LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill. — September 20, 1994 — ARDIS, the nation's first and largest wireless data network, today announced a price restructuring that will reduce the monthly bill for a typical user by more than 25 percent.
The new pricing, which takes effect Jan. 1, 1995, is intended to stimulate greater demand for ARDIS network services and several new bundled solution offerings.
This reduction leverages a number of operating and technology efficiencies that are being implemented in the ARDIS network. Most notable of these is the deployment of 19.2 KBPS infrastructure for all network expansion, providing for more than a four-to-one cost performance improvement over ARDIS' installed 4.8 KBPS radio data infrastructure. This technology, already deployed in ARDIS' top eight metro areas, will be supported by subscriber devices that automatically sense the availability of 19.2 KBPS capability in an area and switch to that channel. If 19.2 KBPS is not deployed in a given area, the device will operate on one of ARDIS' 4.8 KBPS channels.
ARDIS is lowering its prime time message unit charges from the current 8 cents to 6 cents, and the per character charges from 4 cents to 3 cents per 100 characters. Off-peak and monthly minimum usage charges are also being lowered. ARDIS is also introducing a Short Message Service, charging only 3 cents for messages of eight characters or less. This new service makes it much more economical to incorporate status messages, alerts and application-level acknowledgments in a customer's wireless solution.
"This price reduction should be a signal to the market and is intended to stimulate faster growth in our industry," said Frank Wapole, president and CEO of ARDIS. "While we will see an initial reduction in revenue from our existing customers, we believe that will be more than offset by the expansion of application functionality to their existing users, as well as growth in other functions within their company. The real target, however, are new users of wireless data for whom solutions now become more affordable."
Several of ARDIS' bundled services are also included in the price reduction. Prices for ServiceXpress, ARDIS' wireless field service solution, which includes a subscriber device, application software and airtime, will be lowered by at least $25 per month per user. New pricing for ARDIS PersonalMessaging(SM), the company's two-way messaging service, will include a 25 percent increase in the number of message units allowed under various rate plans. Additionally, the new structure will allow numeric and alphanumeric paging, as well as fax messages, to accrue toward those message unit counts.
ARDIS' new pricing structure follows the company's recent announcement of a record-breaking first half of 1994. The company 'as experienced significant growth stemming from the addition of new customers implementing wireless solutions. The growth of applications being offered to markets beyond the traditional field service area has also added to the increase of ARDIS subscribers substantially.
ARDIS operates the first and largest nationwide radio data information service enabling in-building and on-street data communications between hand-held terminals and host computers. The ARDIS network serves more than 10,700 cities and towns in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and covers more than 80 percent of the population and 90 percent of the business activity in the United States. The service enables executives and mobile workers to access their corporate information systems or to communicate instantaneously with their peers from virtually any location.
NOTE: ARDIS is a registered servicemark of ARDIS Company.
CONTACT:
Rob Euler of ARDIS, 708-913-4405; or Tom Murphy
or
Amy Davis of Barkley & Evergreen, 913-432-2600