Editor’s Note: The RCR Wireless News Time Machine is a way to take advantage of our extensive history in covering the wireless space to fire up the DeLorean and take a trip back in time to re-visit some of the more interesting headlines from this week in history. Enjoy the ride!
WCS auction ends in a whimper
The sale of 128 Wireless Communications Services licenses ended early Friday morning after a total of 29 rounds. The final four rounds contained no new bids, no new high bids and a spate of waivers. In this first auction of flexible-use spectrum, the Federal Communications Commission took a beating, revenues-wise, garnering only $13.6 million-a far cry from the original figure of nearly $3 billion and only a bit more than 10 percent of the slimmed down Congressional Budget Office projection of $1.8 billion. There were markets that went cheap. Two licenses in Milwaukee were bid at $1, as were two in Minneapolis, one in Des Moines, one in St. Louis and one in Omaha. One San Francisco license was bid at $6. … Read More
Alabama telephone companies arm themselves with wireless
A C-block enterprise created by two Alabama telephone companies is methodically slipping into position to rival big-name wireless players in the Gulf Coast area. The telephone companies believe if they are going to lose landline customers to wireless offerings, they want to lose business to a company they own. DigiPH (pronounced Digif) is the creation of Millry Telephone Co. and Gulf Telephone Co. It holds personal communications services C-block licenses for eight contiguous basic trading areas in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. … Read More
Department of Justice approves Bell Atlantic, Nynex merger
The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division gave its approval April 24 for Bell Atlantic Corp.’s $23 billion takeover of Nynex Corp. The Federal Communications Commission also must grant its approval before the companies can close the merger. The proposed acquisition, announced in April 1996, would create a new company called Bell Atlantic, headquartered in New York. The combined company would serve 39 million telephone access lines and nearly 5 million wireless customers, at least 80 percent of which are in 13 Eastern Seaboard states and the District of Columbia, with the remainder in various countries around the world. … Read More
Arch chooses to keep name to unify operations, retain identity
Arch Communications Group Inc. introduced its new national brand name, Arch Paging, created to unify the company’s many acquired operations and punctuate its position as a national player in the paging market. On May 1, the Westborough, Mass., company will start using the Arch name in all of its paging properties-including a host of acquired companies that to date retain different brand names. Arch is the company’s original name, adopted from the Boston street location where it was founded in 1986. … Read More
Legislation would stop private wireless spectrum from auction; separate bill aims to stop auction flood
Congress is ready to spring two major spectrum bills that seek to stabilize the Federal Communications Commission’s aggressive auction program and that would apply spectrum lease fees in lieu of competitive bidding to private wireless licensing. One, authored by Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), would exempt private wireless spectrum from auctions and direct the FCC to impose spectrum lease fees instead. Industrial Telecommunications Association President Mark Crosby has been vigorously lobbying Congress the past two years for an alternative to auctions for companies that require internal communications but are not in the communications business themselves. … Read More
Wall street investors put nail in C-Block coffin
”The C-block is obviously dead, and we are waiting for the final nail to be put in the coffin-not because they overpaid or are late, but because the FCC debt is worth more than the value of the spectrum.” That is the view of Brian O’Reilly, managing director of The Toronto-Dominion Bank, New York, about prospects for many C-block personal communications services start-up companies. With more than $1 billion in outstanding loans to wireless companies, Toronto-Dominion today is the single largest commercial bank lender to this industry sector. O’Reilly joined other finance executives in discussions about the future of the industry at a recent conference sponsored by Kagan Seminars Inc., Carmel, Calif. … Read More
Wireless prices lower in cities where PCS and cellular compete
Wireless pricing in competitive markets with at least one personal communications services operator on average is 18 percent lower than in markets with no PCS competitors, reported the Yankee Group. More than 40 markets in North America have three broadband wireless voice providers and 10 markets have four service providers, said the Boston-based firm. Among 30 U.S. markets studied-some with no PCS competitors and others with one or two PCS competitors-PCS pricing is on average 10 percent to 15 percent lower than cellular pricing. Cellular carriers in markets where PCS is operating have accelerated migration to digital services and in some cases are dropping prices. … Read More
MobileMedia’s greatest remaining assets are NPCS licenses
Could or would anyone buy MobileMedia Corp.? If not, what will happen to this bankrupt company, which is the second largest paging carrier in the country, with more than 4 million customers. The industry cannot assess MobileMedia’s value until the Federal Communications Commission either revokes or allows the company to retain its paging licenses. MobileMedia holds thousands of one-way paging licenses and two nationwide narrowband personal communications services licenses. The FCC is examining MobileMedia because it violated rules in filing paging applications. Several hundred FCC Form 489s-which are to be submitted by paging carriers once construction of a paging station has been completed-were filed inappropriately. … Read More
Mexico to hold auction for wireless local loop
Mexico’s Ministry of Communications and Transportation has designated spectrum in the 3.4 GHz to 3.7 GHz band for wireless local loop services, to be auctioned after the auction of personal communications services later this year, according to a report from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Licenses for wireless local loop will be awarded for 62 basic service areas (ABSs). Within each ABS, there is a set of towns or cities that are linked economically or that have similar topography, said the U.S. Embassy. Clusters of the ABSs correspond with Mexico’s nine cellular service regions created in 1989. … Read More
Paging needs to close technology and financing credibility gap
Paging, a veteran wireless player, has to go back to the trenches and prove itself anew to the investment community. The “credibility gap” has three components, Sharon Armbrust, senior analyst for Paul Kagan Associates Inc., Carmel, Calif., said last week-technology, operations and finance. In the technology arena, there has been a once bitten, twice shy sentiment among investors since late 1995 when the launch of SkyTel 2-Way messaging service by Mobile Telecommunication Technologies Corp. “didn’t meet expectations,” she said. “The skittishness of the market about VoiceNow, almost before (Paging Network Inc.’s) VoiceNow (voice paging) was out of the box, is indicative of the fear of (paging’s) dependence on future services and technologies.” … Read More
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