2002

NEW DELHI, India—Hutchison Essar, a GSM service provider in New Delhi, has introduced reduced off-peak charges on prepaid cards. Airtime charges will be reduced to half for both incoming and …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—The South African Competition Commission and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) presented a memorandum of agreement detailing how they will cooperate in respect to the …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—A new scandal provoked a delay for at least 30 days of the Compa

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OXFORD, United Kingdom—Looking to set an example to other European governments, Maurizio Gasparri, the Italian communication minister, has called upon European Union (EU) member states to consider third-generation (3G) bandwidth …

OXFORD, United Kingdom—Following its successful cell-phone investments in Croatia and Slovenia, Mobilkom, part of the former state monopoly Telekom Austria, admitted that it is investigating further investments in Eastern Europe, …

OXFORD, United Kingdom—According to one of the United Kingdom’s largest cell-phone retailers, Carphone Warehouse, less than 1 percent of the 170,000 customers that purchased General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) phones …

MANILA, The Philippines—Philippine telecom watchdog National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said it might not be advisable to impose additional taxes on short messaging services (SMS), as this could lead to a …

TOKYO—NTT Communications, a long-distance and international business unit of the NTT Group, announced that it will launch wireless local area network (WLAN) service on 15 May at 1,600 yen (US$12.46) …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—Telecom Personal commercially introduced its General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network, provided by Ericsson, in the city of Buenos Aires, becoming the first provider in Argentina with 2.5-generation …

DUBLIN, Ireland—Mobile operators in Northern Ireland could face frustration in their efforts to develop higher speed services or even improve coverage if rumored changes to planning legislation are passed. Phone …

TOKYO—NEC, the largest telecom vendor in Japan, announced it will expand its procurement of mobile handsets from China to 200 billion yen (US$1.6 billion) in fiscal 2002. NEC is going …

LINCOLN, Neb.—Centurion Wireless Technologies Inc. announced it is expanding it customer service and technical support capabilities. The company has added hours to its toll-free call center and now serves original …

SAN DIEGO—Leap Wireless International Inc. reported 268,000 net customer additions for the first quarter of this year, ahead of estimates of around 240,000 net additions. The carrier, which markets its …

ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill.—3Com company CommWorks said it has rolled out its cdma2000 1x EV-DO solution for mobile subscribers at speeds up to 2.4 Megabits per second, 16 times faster than …

TOKYO—NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it would offer discounts to its wireless customers in celebration of its tenth anniversary. The discounts will apply to communications charges for its PDC and FOMA …

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.—IBM Corp. is introducing a new ThinkPad notebook, known as the T30, which combines it mobility solutions with Cisco System’s network infrastructure products and solutions. “The flagship …

KIRKLAND, Wash.—Nextel Partners Inc. pre-announced select results for the first quarter reporting it added 85,200 net subscribers during the first quarter of this year, ending the quarter with 601,100 wireless …

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Wireless content management company WebUnwired announced it changed its name to Net6 Inc., a move the company said better reflects its expanded business focus. The company said the …

CAMBRIDGE, England—ARM Ltd. has delivered a port of the Symbian operating system for ARM-powered 2.5 and third-generation smart phone devices to Motorola Inc. “The port, which has been created ahead …

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Semotus Solutions announced its wireless messaging solution, HipLinkXS, will be deployed at Kraft Foods’ systems division. HipLinkXS, which includes scheduling and escalation features and two-way messaging capabilities, will …

WASHINGTON—As expected, the telecom quartet on Wednesday introduced the Auction Reform Act of 2002 to delay the 700 MHz auction. “I am delighted that 52 members of the [House Commerce …

NEW DELHI, India—Use of the ACeS satellite-based mobile-phone service in Asia Pacific is growing rapidly. Use of ACeS satellite phones increased to 3.7 million minutes in March and to 9.6 …

TOKYO—J-Phone, a Vodafone Group operator in Japan, announced it will postpone its third-generation (3G) service launch until December to provide “global standard service.” J-Phone had previously planned to launch its …

JAKARTA, Indonesia—Singapore Telecom (SingTel) embraced its Asian subsidiaries, Australia’s Optus and the Philippines’ Globe Telecom, to set up new roaming services for data communications. Later this year, it plans to …