Crown Castle International Corp. closed concurrent public offerings of common stock and convertible preferred stock and received gross proceeds of approximately $758.9 million, the company said. Crown Castle received $356.4 million from the common stock offering and $402.5 million from the preferred stock offering. The company said the net proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, including capital expenditures and the acquisition of shared communications infrastructure.
Less than 50,000 fixed wireless broadband lines are deployed in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday as it announced the status of the nation’s broadband deployment. Broadband is defined as 200 Kilobits per second both up and downstream.
Lockheed Martin Corp. and Comsat Corp. have completed their $790 million merger following final approval by the Federal Communications Commission, the companies announced. The transaction was accomplished via a one-for-one tax-free exchange of Lockheed Martin common stock for Comsat common stock for the remaining 51 percent of Comsat that Lockheed did not already own. Comsat said it will become part of Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications, a wholly owned subsidiary composed of Lockheed Martin’s telecommunications services business.
The Wireless Data Forum said it plans to develop a strategic partnership with information technology solution firm MindMatrix Inc. of Pittsburgh. Under the agreement, MindMatrix will promote the use of wireless data technologies on its SolveIT Web site, encouraging IT users to design wireless IT solutions by drawing on the products and services of WDF member companies.
Sprint PCS introduced Sprint PCS Voice Command, a nationwide network-based, voice-activated dialing and information service allowing customers to quickly access people and information from their Sprint wireless phone. The service provides each customer with a personal Web page to manage, organize and enter up to 2,500 numbers in an address book, eliminating the need to voice train each entry.
