Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the top headlines from the past. Fire up the time machine, put on the sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and enjoy the memories!
Paging not threatened by PCS, industry-wide growth predicted
Growth in the paging industry exploded this year, led by public companies that have pushed boldly across market borders, stepped confidently into marriages of convenience and reaped tremendous opportunities from serving a new consumer-oriented market. The result is a 38% industry growth rate at the end of 1994, according to Economic & Management Consultants International Inc., a 9% increase when compared with 29% growth at year-end 1993. Industry leaders say that as paging companies grow, they tend to attract more investors. With narrowband personal communications services networks gearing up to offer advanced messaging services, traditional one-way paging companies must have their feet firmly in place-or at least firmly in offering their own type of PCS. … Read More
Monitoring high-growth paging proves a challenge for the FCC
Federal regulators overseeing the fast-growing paging industry these days have a “good problem” that could easily turn into a bad problem with a few missteps by Washington officials in the coming months. Here’s the good problem: Paging, the most competitive sector of the wireless telecommunications industry, is bursting at the seams with more than 27 million subscribers and nearly 40 percent growth. Scores of paging firms duke it out daily for a share of the low-end, multifunctional paging market. At the same time, massive consolidation is occurring. The FCC has become a victim of its forward thinking and the success of the paging business it oversees. … Read More
FCC rules local public utilities can’t regulate wireless charges
In a major setback for states, the Federal Communications Commission ruled public utility commissions cannot regulate local rates of commercial wireless carriers. The FCC on May 11 rejected petitions from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, New York and Ohio seeking to retain rate regulation of cellular, paging, specialized mobile radio and coming personal communications services. Wyoming also had asked for continued oversight of wireless rates, but subsequently withdrew its petition after a deregulatory bill passed by its state legislature mooted the request. If states seek reconsideration of the rulings, the FCC must act before Aug. 10 in accordance with congressional mandate. … Read More
Greene readies to rule whether AirTouch must follow Bell rules
U.S. District Judge Harold Greene will decide whether AirTouch Communications Inc., a wireless spin-off of Pacific Telesis Group, is held to restrictions imposed on the seven regional Bell telephone companies by the 1982 consent decree that broke up AT&T. San Francisco-based AirTouch, a top paging and cellular telephone operator in the United States and abroad, asked Greene in February to declare that restrictions forbidding Bells from offering long-distance telephone service and manufacturing telecommunications equipment not apply to it. The Justice Department, reacting to an inquiry by MCI Communications Corp. last August, ruled in January that AirTouch-as a “successor” of PacTel-has to live by the same rules as Baby Bells. … Read More
Ericsson posts 65% gain in first quarter 1995 earnings
Boasting a 65% increase in first quarter earnings, Ericsson Inc. reported its radio communications sector is largely accountable for the company’s financial results. For the period ended March 31, Ericsson’s net income totaled $114 million, compared with $69 million for the same period in 1994. Net revenue also soared, reaching $2.7 billion, up 23.9% from $2.2 billion last year, reported the Stockholm, Sweden-based company. Radio communications, dominated by mobile telephony, is responsible for $1.4 billion of those revenues, increasing 41.3% from $977.8 million in 1994. The United States remains Ericsson’s largest single market, claiming slightly more than 10% of net sales. Combined, Ericsson’s European interests account for about 52% of net sales, most heavily concentrated in Sweden. Sales in Asia collectively represent 22% of total sales, derived primarily from China. … Read More
Paging evolves into messaging with technological innovations
As the onset of narrowband personal communications services nears, the industry is abuzz about what promises to be the next wave of wireless wonder. But for many narrowband providers-to-be, it is only a natural extension of one-way paging. Two camps have emerged among advanced messaging providers, according to Roberta Wiggins, director of wireless/mobile communications for Boston-based Yankee Group. Paging giants Paging Network Inc. and Mobile Telecommunication Technologies Corp. acquired enough bandwidth that they have “nothing to lose and everything to gain,” remarked Wiggins. The companies’ networks and messaging features are extensive. … Read More
Industry groups exchange jabs as clearing 2 GHz band begins
Industry negotiations aimed at clearing fixed microwave licensees off the 2 GHz band that next-generation pocket telephone systems will soon occupy have begun with a bang. Personal Communications Industry Association President Jay Kitchen fired the opening discharge late last month, stating in a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt that microwave users are being encouraged to “extract excessive premium payments in relocation negotiations.” FCC rules require new personal communications services operators underwrite the costs of moving 2 GHz microwave users to comparable facilities on higher frequency bands. Kitchen was alluding to marketing materials distributed by the Utilities Telecommunications Council, which represents electric, gas, water and natural gas pipeline companies operating microwave systems. … Read More
Phone fraud fox to lead national crime crusade against cellular thieves
As the telecommunications industry continues its offensive to beguile fraud criminals with technology, Freddie the Fox is fighting fraud on the home front. The Alliance to Outfox Phone Fraud has launched a campaign to increase fraud awareness and prevention among consumers through advertisements, public service announcements, brochures and public appearances by Freddie. Alliance members include Bell Atlantic Corp., Southwestern Bell Telephone Cos., Illinois Consolidated Telephone Co., American Telecommunications Enterprises Inc. and the Communications Fraud Control Association. … Read More
Racotek partners with BAM
Bell Atlantic Mobile and Racotek Inc. have signed a multiyear marketing and technology agreement to integrate BAM’s cellular digital packet data and circuit-switched data capabilities with Racotek’s KeyWare product. KeyWare is mobile networking software that operates on network servers and within portable computers. It allows the use of industry-standard application environments and numerous types of portable computers over a variety of wireless and wireline networks. KeyWare will allow BAM customers to use other carriers’ CDPD and cellular networks while out of BAM’s coverage area, through KeyWare’s client/server server/client design. … Read More
Bell’s long-distance chains loosened
The telecommunications reform bill introduced in the House last week would give the seven regional Bell telephone companies more freedom to offer wireless long-distance service than offered by the waiver granted late last month by U.S. District Judge Harold Greene. The House measure, sponsored by Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley, R-Va., and a handful of Democrats, would let Bells offer wireless long distance immediately with few strings attached. The Senate telecommunications bill would do much the same. Telecommunications bills in both houses leave commercial wireless carriers largely deregulated. Nevertheless, Greene’s ruling is seen as a big victory for the Baby Bells in light of the uncertain fate of telecommunications legislation in the 104th Congress. … Read More
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