Eurotel Praha s.r.o., Bell Atlantic Corp.’s cellular provider in the Czech Republic, has launched commercial Global System for Mobile communications cellular service in that country. The service covers 43 percent of the licensed territory and 63 percent of the population, Bell Atlantic said. At launch, roaming agreements are already in place that will allow Eurotel’s GSM customers to travel to Austria, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Hungary. Eurotel had more than 55,000 analog customers at the end of May.
GTE Corp. announced an agreement with Telecom Italia to provide Alitalia, a Rome-based airline, with its Airfone telecommunications equipment. GTE’s airborne communications equipment will be installed on six Alitalia Boeing 767 passenger aircraft. GTE said it will provide its advanced digital GenStar system including telephone handsets and cabin telecommunications units.
Motorola Inc.’s North Asia Cellular Infrastructure Division announced it has won a $10 million contract to expand the Global System for Mobile communications cellular telephone network in Beijing, China. The contract calls for the deployment of Motorola’s M-Cell family of base stations, including the M-Cell2, M-Cell6 and the M-Cellmicro. The expansion is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year and will increase subscriber capacity from 100,000 to 250,000, said Motorola.
California Microwave Inc. announced it has won a contract to supply and install digital microwave radios for the first phase of the ProMonte Global System for Mobile communications network in the Republic of Montenegro. Montenegro, one the republics of the former Yugoslavia, hopes to rebuild its telecommunications infrastructure. Businesses currently incur a subscription fee of about $1,000 to be connected to the fixed network, said California Microwave. Phase I of the installation will cover the capital city of Pdgorica, two inland cities and eight tourist towns on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. This portion of the project is expected to be completed by September.
Paging Network of Canada Inc. and Madison Telecommunications Holdings Inc. announced they have each entered into new revolving lines of credit to allow aggregate borrowings of up to $66.1 million. The funds will be used to support the growth of their newly organized paging and wireless messaging companies and to assist in building an extensive high-speed digital wireless network in Canada.
Coherent Communications Systems Corp. announced it recently renewed a supply agreement with Cable & Wireless plc. The agreement centers on Coherent’s EC-6000 Series 2 digital echo canceller, providing global availability of the product, which supports Cable & Wireless’ international telephony and digital cellular operations.
