July 1998

WASHINGTON-BellSouth Corp. told the Federal Communications Commission last week that since a majority of personal communications services customers in Louisiana said they use their PCS phone to make or receive …

Comverse Network Systems, a division of Comverse Technology Inc., joined the Wireless Application Protocol Forum Ltd., said the company. Comverse said it is the first vendor exclusively dedicated to providing …

Formed to take advantage of the current round of consolidation in the paging industry, a fairly new company announced its first purchase-the paging assets and operations of Bell Atlantic Corp. …

BEDMINSTER, N.J.-Bell Atlantic Mobile said about one-fourth of its new customers are choosing digital service, and as a result, digital now accounts for close to 20 percent of the use …

NEW YORK-Boston-based American Tower Systems Corp. sold a secondary offering of 29.37 million shares of Class A common stock July 2 at a price of $23.50 each in connection with …

WASHINGTON-Key lawmakers are expected soon to ask Federal Communications Commission Chairman Bill Kennard to lift burdensome common carrier regulations off the backs of specialized mobile radio operators, something the agency …

FORT LEE, N.J.-MobileMedia Corp. announced it signed a definitive agreement to sell its 163 transmission towers to Pinnacle Towers Inc. The $170 million sale allows MobileMedia to retain ownership of …

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.- Evolving Systems Inc., a software product development and systems integration firm, last week debuted its MetOSS-GEM software platform that automates and streamlines information to be shared by service …

A group of smaller, paging manufacturers impudently are challenging the pager dominance of the 800-pound gorilla that is Motorola Inc. by creating products with unique features designed to set themselves …

WASHINGTON-It is Congress, not the Federal Communications Commission, that makes telecom policy, according to one of the new FCC commissioners, Harold Furchtgott-Roth. The FCC “must simply follow the law as …

PageMart Wireless Inc. announced it began shipping the Synapse Pager Card, which allows wireless messaging on 3com Corp.’s PalmPilot Organizer. The card-developed by PageMart, 3Com and Motorola Inc.-upgrades all Pilot, …

NEW YORK-Teleglobe Inc., Montreal, has been on the move in a big way lately. The company announced July 6 it has so far provided 100 Global System for Mobile communications …

Second-tier wireless companies are hot properties, helping to push wireless stock prices past the Standard &Poor’s index. Centennial Cellular Corp. earlier this month became the third second-tier cellular carrier to …

KANSAS CITY, Mo.-Sprint PCS said it introduced a service that allows customers to connect their non-Sprint-branded pagers with their Sprint PCS handsets. The new service, Sprint PCS Page Connect, is …

OLYMPIA, Wash.-Roger Moore, president and chief executive officer of Illuminet Inc., will resign effective Sept. 1, to become president and CEO of VINA Technologies, a voice, data and Internet integration …

With the lifespan of paging devices getting ever shorter, and with new advanced paging devices flooding the marketplace, paging carriers must be extra careful in their purchasing patterns. Kevin Reynolds, …

WASHINGTON-A federal appeals court last week said mandatory resale of commercial mobile radio services can sunset in 2002, dealing a blow to wireless resellers who argued the government could not …

A dispute between Omnipoint Communications Enterprises L.P. and one of its site-acquisition consultants highlights the potential problems that can occur when wireless carriers loosen their control on tower siting. Omnipoint …

MEXICO CITY-Northern Telecom Inc. has been chosen to supply the equipment and services for a Code Division Multiple Access fixed wireless access network in Mexico for freshman telecom provider Unefon. …

NEW YORK-Comunicacion Nextel de Mexico SA executives were scheduled to meet late last week with officials of the Mexico Federal Telecommunications Commission, or Cofetel, to resolve an apparent disagreement about …

MELBOURNE, Fla.-Harris Corp. said it formed a partnership with ADC Metrica to offer ADC’s performance management tools as part of Harris’ network management service platform. The Harris platform offers unified …

NEW YORK-Managistics Group Inc., Rockville, Md., announced Nokia Corp. selected it to optimize Nokia’s global supply chain operations. Nokia’s goal is to increase customer service while gaining significant efficiencies along …

NEW YORK-Loral Space & Communications Ltd., New York, announced July 6 it had closed on its purchase of 4.2 million partnership interests in Globalstar L.P. from founding service provider partners …

INDIANAPOLIS-Brightpoint Inc. completed the previously announced acquisition of Eurocom Systems S.A., thereby establishing logistics services and distribution operations in France. Eurocom reported net sales of about $10.7 million during 1997, …