2003

WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission is requesting comments on the plan submitted on Christmas Eve by the private-wireless and public-safety communities and Nextel Communications Inc. to solve the public-safety interference problem …

MANILA, The Philippines-Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has approved a 25-year franchise application of Gokongwei-owned Digital Telecommunications (Digitel) to operate a cellular phone firm. To be operated by Digitel Mobile Philippines, …

WASHINGTON-Eldorado Communications L.L.C. asked the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s recent decision to allow winners in the re-auction of bankrupt NextWave Telecom Inc.’s licenses to …

SEOUL, South Korea-Samsung Electronics said it has approved a plan rumored earlier this week to spend $1.23 billion in a plant to produce dynamic random-access memory and flash memory chips. …

WASHINGTON-Customers should thoroughly read wireless service contracts and insist on a trial period before signing up for service, said the Federal Communications Commission on Dec. 31. The suggestion, made by …

BEIJING-Guangdong Telecom, a provincial subsidiary of fixed-line operator China Telecom, has launched a controversial call-forwarding service in three cities in Guangdong Province whereby mobile users can forward incoming calls to …

NEW DELHI, India-Indian cellular companies slashed mobile-to-mobile national long-distance tariffs by nearly one-third, in an obvious response to low tariff rates announced by Reliance, a leading limited mobility operator. The …

LONDON-British Telecommunications said it will sell its nearly 21-percent interest in Hong Kong’s SmarTone for HK$1.03 billion (US$132 million) to Sun Hung Kai. The U.K.-based operator said the sale is …

SEOUL, South Korea-Samsung Electronics said it has approved a plan rumored earlier this week to spend US$1.23 billion in a plant to produce dynamic random-access memory and flash memory chips. …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-The Nigerian National Committee on Financial Crimes (NCFC) recently announced that it apprehended a suspect who is believed to have been involved in the sale of Nitel subscriber …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-Ugandan mobile network operator Celtel announced the company intends to increase its coverage to include 38 more towns on its network by March 2003. Richard Mugera, marketing and …

BEIJING-At year-end, China Unicom announced it had reached its target of 7 million CDMA users. The company also said it had built a CDMA 1x network in all provincial capital …

TOKYO-Sony Communication Network (SCN), a subsidiary of Sony Corporation, is going to launch PHS packet services and wireless local area network (WLAN) services in February, the firm announced. According to …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentian-Am

NEW DELHI, India-Indian cellular companies on Thursday slashed mobile-to-mobile national long-distance tariffs by nearly one-third, in an obvious response to low tariff rates announced by Reliance, a leading limited mobility …

OXFORD, United Kingdom-The upsurge in requests from U.K. police for information regarding suspects’ cell-phone calls has forced operators to impose a charge for each request, according to operators. The firms …

BEIJING-China’s home-bred technology, TD-SCDMA, will not be available until 2004 and continued testing will hold off licenses to fixed-line operators, according to Li Shihe, chief technology officer at Datang Mobile …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-As part of the restructuring of its US$867 million debt, Telef

OXFORD, United Kingdom-The booming market in premium rate short message service (SMS) looks likely to be hit by new regulations if proposals from the Icstis regulatory trade body are accepted. …