March 2002

TOKYO—NTT DoCoMo, the leading mobile carrier in Japan, in the third quarter will launch an experiment for a fourth-generation (4G) mobile service, which will be able to provide 100 Megabits …

OXFORD, United Kingdom—With cell-phone penetration reaching more than 80 percent in some European countries, market researchers have reported a growing tide of opinion to ban the use of mobile phones …

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas, United States—Alltel said it will buy all of CenturyTel’s wireless properties for US$1.65 billion cash. Alltel said the deal will bring it more than 700,000 new customers …

HOUSTON—Compaq Computer Corp. said its shareholders approved the company’s merger with Hewlett-Packard Co. yesterday in a vote carried by a nine-to-one margin. “At the end of the day, this merger …

LONDON—Mobile commerce is poised for a take-off within the next few years, according to a new Frost & Sullivan study. The consulting firm expects trade worth $25 billion to be …

ORLANDO, Florida, United States—Lucent Technologies and Verizon Wireless will begin a Washington, D.C., area trial next month of a data-optimized, cdma2000 network. The network, also known as 1xEV-DO, will provide …

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MANILA, The Philippines—Mobile and data network provider Alcatel Phils. projects US$200 million in sales this year amid the expected sluggish local cellular phone industry. Last year, the company’s sales amounted …

MOSCOW—The biggest Russian carrier, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), placed US$50 million of euro bonds. The MFD-InfoCenter reported that the bonds will mature on 21 December, 2004, and the coupon yield is …

MELBOURNE, Australia—The mobile-phone operations of Telstra have largely helped the Australian communications giant post a 2-percent lift in sales across the company in the first half of the financial year. …

HELSINKI, Finland—The Danish government has requested a meeting with SBC Communications to discuss the U.S. telecom company’s immediate future plans for its 42-percent equity in the Danish telecom company TDC. …

NEW DELHI, India—The Bharti Group has bought more than a 26-percent stake from Telia AB in Bharti Mobile, which operates cellular services in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab circles. The …

MOSCOW—Belarussian red tape is delaying the launch of the second GSM network by the biggest Russian carrier MTS scheduled for 17 April, and now everything depends on President Alexander Lukashenko. …

BEIJING—China Mobile Communications reported a net profit of 45.5 billion yuan (US$5.5 billion) for 2001. Its listed subsidiary China Mobile (Hong Kong) said its net profit reached 28 billion yuan …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—In a decision unprecedented in Chile, Telef

NEW YORK—Cell phone ownership has gone up 29 percent in the past two years, and currently about 62 percent, or two-thirds, of American adults own cell phones, according to a …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Mobile communication applications provider iTouch, founded in Cape Town, South Africa, and listed on the London Stock Exchange, has announced financial results for the year to December 2001, …

ATLANTA, United States—BellSouth announced it sold its entire stake, or 234.7 million shares, in Dutch telecommunications provider Royal KPN. The sale will give the company an after-tax gain of US$850 …

JAKARTA, Indonesia—Vodafone New Zealand recently announced the purchase of management rights for 5 megahertz of third-generation (3G) spectrum from TelstraClear. TelstraClear, the new name after a merger between TelstraSaturn, a …

TOKYO—DDI Pocket, a PHS business unit of KDDI Group and the largest PHS carrier in Japan, will launch a 128 kilobits per second (kbps) packet communications service on 26 March. …

OXFORD, United Kingdom—In an effort to reduce its market entry costs as a greenfield third-generation (3G) operator, Hutchison 3G is negotiating with U.K. operators mmO2 and One 2 One about …

ATLANTA, United States—Numerex announced it will provide United Telecommunication Services (UTS), official telecommunications company of the Netherlands Antilles, with its patent-pending wireless short message service (SMS) throughout its Caribbean coverage …

ORLANDO, Fla.—Cingular Wireless announced at CTIA’s Wireless 2002 conference and exhibition its plans to roll out its advanced wireless services in California by the end of the second quarter and …

BEIJING—China Unicom’s CDMA network registered 448,000 subscribers at the end of February. Only a paltry 9,000 users signed up in February. The vast majority of CDMA users were transferred from …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Zimbabwe is a country on the threshold of total anarchy and economic collapse. With the recent elections, the world is collectively holding its breath to see if the …