Cellbee Weather by Phone for Telephone Carriers

The History
Telephone Carriers have been providing the public weather forecasts by phone for 70 years. The first recorded telephone weather service was introduced to the public by New York Telephone in 1939. The number was WEather 6-1212 (remember?). These services were extremely popular among the public, and extremely profitable for carriers as premiums were charged for each of these calls on customer's phone bills.

As part of the divestiture of AT&T, Judge Harold Green also ruled that telephone carriers could no longer provide "content". To get around this, carriers began contracting with independent Information Provider companies ("IPs") for the provision of weather reports and other content services, splitting the revenue derived from the premium charges that were billed. (Our parent company, Larry Weiss Associates, Inc, was one of the original IPs, and a major player in the industry. Indeed, LWA was the contract operator of New York Telephone's original telephone weather service for many years. On 9/11 and immediate days after, LWA's telephone weather services were among the few remaining media outlets providing weather and other information to the public)

The Problem
Weather and other telephone content services began to experience a challenge as new carriers began offering local phone service. Even though Judge Green's decision about providing content had eventually been reversed, carriers began to find that the expense and effort of trying to bill premium charges for calls coming from competing carriers to be prohibitive, and telephone weather services, along with other content services, were eventually discontinued. This left an informational void only partially filled by the Web and other media, as, in most cases, the telephone was and is still the fastest and easiest way to obtain the weather and other information.

The Solution
Cellbee Weather-by-Phone Services are so inexpensive and easy, carriers are once again finding value in providing the weather over the phone. However, instead of charging a premium for the call, Cellbee Weather-by-Phone's ease and low cost means carriers can offer a telephone weather service at no charge to their customers. Not only does this generate public good will, it also allows carriers to broadcast valuable informational and promotional messages about their services.

You are in the telephone business.
You know how much people use their phones.
Take advantage of that fact.
Provide a Telephone Weather Service to the public
with Cellbee Weather-by-Phone