November 1999

SAN FRANCISCO-Act now! GSM carriers need to deploy wireless data today, speakers told Global System for Mobile communications operators at last week’s GSM in North America conference here. Carriers need …

BELLEVUE, Wash.-VoiceStream Wireless Corp. announced it raised about $1.5 billion in proceeds from the issuance of 10.375-percent senior notes and 11.875-percent senior discount notes. The 10.375-percent senior notes due 2009 …

LAS VEGAS-Following are the winners of the tower industry’s Excellence in Business Awards sponsored by RCR and Shorecliff Communications Inc. The winners were announced last week at the 1999 Tower …

PARIS-In Fusio, a games development and animation provider, announced it has joined forces with Webraska, a provider of mapping and guidance services for Wireless Application Protocol phones, to create location-based …

HELSINKI-Telefonica Moviles of Spain, with approximately 8 million cellular subscribers, signed an agreement with Nokia Corp. for the deployment of a General Packet Radio Services core network. Also, Nokia and …

TOKYO-Singapore Telecom and KDD Corp. of Japan formed a partnership under which the two companies agreed to swap shares, forming a joint venture to provide managed end-to-end telecom services for …

WASHINGTON-The Clinton administration, bowing to industry pressure here and across the Atlantic, last week signaled for the first time a willingness to consider supporting global harmonization of third-generation mobile spectrum …

As the wireless industry continues its journey toward the convergence of wireless and Internet, many have kept a wary eye on Microsoft Corp. to determine where wireless concerns can fit …

LAS VEGAS-The agreement between Crown Castle International Corp. and GTE Corp. by many accounts eliminated the last major carrier tower portfolio on the market and capped off a year of …

SUNNYVALE, Calif.-Spectrian Corp. said its semiconductor division will operate as an autonomous business unit named UltraRF. “With its formation as an independent business unit, UltraRF is now free to design …

LONDON-Vodafone AirTouch plc acknowledged speculation circulating last week that it was interested in making a bid for Germany’s Mannesmann AG and hinted that a future tie-up of the two could …

WASHINGTON-In a major setback to Bell Atlantic Mobile and AT&T Wireless Services Inc., the Virginia Supreme Court ruled wireless carriers must have local approval to erect towers on state-owned property. …

WASHINGTON-The No. 1 issue for the wireless telecommunications industry is access to additional spectrum, whether it is the incumbent cellular operators wanting the spectrum cap lifted (and start-up operator attempts …

Enhanced specialized mobile radio operators are poised to lead the country in rolling out Wireless Application Protocol services next year. Today, no U.S. wireless provider offers full WAP services. But …

Dear Editor: I have been a customer of AT&T Wireless in the New York region for several years. During this time, I have utilized the service from a home base …

GENEVA-A group of radio experts on IMT-2000, which met in Helsinki, Finland between Oct. 25 and Nov. 5, have approved a set of terrestrial and satellite radio interface specifications for …

United Kingdom British Telecommunications plc is close to a deal with Viag, the German utility, that would give it access to the Austrian telecom market and more control in Switzerland, …

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla.-Motorola Inc. said it has added InfoBeam technology from JP Systems to the PageWriter 2000X, extending microbrowser functionality to the two-way pager to enable news, sports scores, weather …

Dear Editor: I’d like to offer a short response to Scott Adam’s letter to the editor in your Nov. 8 edition, “Protected spectrum counters efficient use of spectrum.” I believe …

Key to the merger agreement between Paging Network Inc. and Arch Communications Group Inc. is a massive debt reduction to be achieved through a proposed recapitalization plan that would convert …

BEIJING-Nortel Networks announced that its joint venture, Guangdong Nortel Telecommunications Equipment Ltd., was awarded contracts valued at $64 million by China Unicom and Anhui Mobile Communications Corp. The contracts are …

The waning loss of faith in the American political system can be explained away by episodes like this. The alleged misdeed, if true, is bad enough. The way the incident …

SAN FRANCISCO-North American Global System for Mobile communications operators had an upbeat story to tell international GSM carriers this year at the GSM in North America conference last week. Last …

The House, over protests from the White House and some congressional Democrats, last week approved legislation to make electronic signatures legal. The measure, which passed by a 356-66 margin, comes …

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.-Phone.com Inc. released beta version 4.0 of its UP.SDK software development kit, providing the wireless developer community with a Wireless Application Protocol version 1.1 compliant development environment. The …