Personal communications services provider PrimeCo Personal Communications L.P. signed a roaming agreement with GTE Wireless that will expand its PrimeTravel coverage area to 45 of the country’s top 50 markets, said PrimeCo. PrimeCo customers now can roam in GTE’s San Francisco; Indianapolis; Nashville and Memphis, Tenn.; El Paso, Texas; and Louisville, Ky., markets. Calls initiated while roaming on a partner’s analog network are priced at 69 cents per minute plus long-distance charges, said PrimeCo. The company also has roaming agreements with its parent companies-AirTouch Communications Inc. and Bell Atlantic Corp.
Developer Franklin Haney last week defied House Commerce Committee subpoenas for records on the 20-year, $400 million lease he signed with the General Services Administration in 1996 to relocate the Federal Communications Commission to the Portals. House investigators and the Justice Department are investigating whether Haney paid an illegal $1 million performance fee to lobbyist Peter Knight, manager of the ’96 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign, and whether $230,000 in Democratic campaign contributions from Haney’s firms influenced the awarding of the federal lease. Haney now could face contempt of Congress charges that the Justice Department would pursue, and which could lead to a jail sentence.
Conductus Inc. said it received the first of a planned series of follow-on orders of its ClearSite cellular receiver subsystems from Cellcom. The Wisconsin-based cellular operator installed five ClearSite systems in its network following an extended beta trial more than a year ago, and since then has documented fewer dropped calls, enhanced voice quality and increased use in sites equipped with ClearSite, Conductus said.
