2009-03-06 TT-MOBILE - Laserfiche WebLink

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And the first I’d like to bring up is how T-Mobile can help the economy when it comes to the cell phone industry. T-Mobile actually does have cheaper plans than most of the higher carriers, for example AT&T, Verizon, as examples. One example is Verizon $59.99 gives them, what, 900 minutes with nights and weekend. With T-Mobile 1,000 minutes will give you for $49.99, so $10.00 cheaper. Working in the Big Island I also go and fly to Oahu pretty often to work there as well. I notice there’s a big difference. In Oahu about 10 percent of the customers that we do pre-approvals or credit checks with will be approved for what’s called flex pay. Flex pay is a program set up for T-Mobile where in the past we used to take deposits, where deposits would be $200 to $400 down for people who are still establishing their credit or made mistakes in the past. With T-Mobile rather than putting a deposit down they’re just paying at the beginning of the month, so it gives a lot of these people who have made mistakes in the past or who are struggling in our economy another chance to have us serve as a carrier. In the Big Island actually about over 50 percent of our customers fall under that category of what’s called flex pay. I know some people were mentioning that, you know, they do get service a little bit with certain other carriers. Those carriers are the carriers that would have to actually put a $200 to $400 deposit if they’re still establishing the credit or building a credit, which here on the Big Island unfortunately a lot of people are in that circumstance. So just kind of to, and with that it’s T-Mobile, their setup is to help these people who are in need of communications with cell phones and getting them in through that way. Second thing is safety. Many times I’ve had customers come in, especially talking about, you know, Kurtistown areas, places where they are unable to get reception. I recall that two women from around Kurtistown area who explained that they’ve never had a cell phone in their life; and the reason why they came in that day was because they actually got into a car accident, and if they had a cell phone, they’d be able to call. Things like that get me thinking about, you know, safety issues, calling for, you know, people who actually do need to use the cell phones during, you know, emergencies, things like that. The last thing is the roaming agreements. He actually mentioned in the beginning, but T-Mobile actually does have roaming agreements with AT&T where just because of the way the island is set up that in certain locations where AT&T has better receptions we’ll roam on them and vice versa. I know he was explaining that, you know, one of the concerns is if this is approved, will they be building more towers nearby; the answer would probably be no on that because AT&T would probably roam on our towers. So, and that’s my conclusion on that. WATANABE: Thank you. Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: This is sort of a déjà vu all over again from our last meeting. We had another cell phone tower question, an applicant. And there is actually Statute that requires that people that build these towers allow them to be, allow other carriers to put their dishes on that tower. And that essentially avoids having sixteen towers instead of one. So I think we’re fairly familiar with this issue. SAKAMAKI: Oh, sorry about that. EXHIBIT A 4