BUSINESS BRIEFS

Oki telecom, one of Oki America Inc.’s five divisions, announced Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. will realign the corporate structure of its U.S. telecommunications group. On October 1, a new corporation named Oki Telecom Inc. will be established to better address the opportunities presented in today’s marketplace, the company said. OTI will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. and will work directly with the senior management structure of Oki’s telecommunications group in Japan.

AirTouch Communications Inc.has selected Northern Telecom Inc. to supply a Code Division Multiple Access digital cellular network for metropolitan Detroit. The network will include Nortel’s 800 MHz CDMA radio base stations, DMS-MTX digital mobile switching systems and mobility services. It will overlay AirTouch’s existing analog cellular network from Ericsson Inc.

Omnipoint Communications Inc., a subsidiary of Omnipoint Corp., announced it has signed a non-exclusive contract with Brightpoint Inc. for wholesale product distribution for OCI’s personal communications services business. According to the arrangement, Brightpoint will provide OCI with subscriber product packaging, inventory management and fulfillment services. Omnipoint has received PCS licenses that cover more than 40 million people.

Preferred Networks Inc., a wholesale provider of one-way paging network services, announced it has acquired a substantial portion of Big Apple Paging Corp.’s assets. Big Apple is a reseller-based paging carrier operating on the 152.60 MHz frequency in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The FCC approved the license transfer on August 30.

SkyTel Corp., a subsidiary of Mobile Telecommunication Technologies Corp., announced its new paging service called Grab `n Go paging to be launched this fall. The service allows consumers to purchase either 25 or 100 pages from designated retailers or directly from SkyTel. The customer then has a year to use the pages. Customers also will have the option of purchasing a package which will include a new Sony MP-1000 numeric pager, activation and 50 Grab `n Go Pages. The service will be compatible with numeric SkyTel and Sony pagers and will be added to existing SkyTel service plans.

Siemens Stromberg-Carlson has entered into initial agreements with Pocket Communications, the winner of 43 wireless personal communications services licenses, to supply Global System for Mobile communications equipment and services during the next three years. The first installations, planned for mid-1997, will use Siemens’ mobile switching systems, base stations, base station controllers and micro base stations. The system will be deployed in the Detroit area.

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