Sprint restructure plans progress in move to allow cable split, while Enron moves forward on IoT plans … 18 years ago this week.
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!
Sprint takes steps to let cable partners leave
Sprint Corp. is expected to announce this week a plan that would restructure its ownership in Sprint Spectrum L.P. and allow its cable partners to exit the business. Sprint confirmed that it has made substantial progress in negotiating with its three cable partners-Tele-Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications Inc.-to form a new structure that would allow Sprint to acquire full ownership of Sprint PCS and PhillieCo, which will be combined with Sprint’s solely owned SprintCom basic trading area properties. … Read More
Despite Calif. problems, Enron to progress
SkyTel Corp. said its six-year airtime provision agreement with Enron Energy Services Inc. is still on track as planned, despite media reports that the utility company is backing off its marketing plan in deregulated states. The agreement between SkyTel and Enron, a subsidiary of Enron Corp., names SkyTel the airtime carrier for Enron’s planned Interactive Metering Solution, which provides automated meter reading and other value-added services. The utility hopes to provide electric services in soon-to-be-deregulated markets, competing on price and unique value-added services. Enron signed a similar agreement with Ardis for industrial and commercial customers. … Read More
Telecom, Internet fuel venture-capital investments
First-quarter venture capital investments in wireless and other telecommunications totaled $396 million, nearly double that of the same period in 1997 and triple that of the first quarter of 1996, said Kirk Walden, national director of the quarterly Venture Capital Survey of Price Waterhouse L.L.P., Austin, Texas. The telecom/wireless sector, which posted a 96-percent increase in investments during the prior-year first quarter, is growing nearly twice the 56-percent average rate of all industries, he said. Investments in the telecom wireless sector were diverse in terms of geography and expertise specialty. Sixty companies in 15 different regions of the United States received funding last quarter. They spanned all segments of the industry, from services to equipment to software to resellers. … Read More
Motorola backs Teledesic with equity stake
Teledesic L.L.C. and Motorola Inc. last week announced they will become partners in the development and deployment of Teledesic’s global broadband “Internet-in-the-Sky” satellite communications system. The Boeing Co., a leading aerospace company, and satellite manufacturer Matra Marconi Space, will round out the team of founding industrial partners, said Teledesic. Boeing, which had been prime contractor for Teledesic, reportedly will decrease its participation in the project to concentrate mostly on software and systems integration. Motorola will be the new prime contractor for the team, which will combine the technical efforts currently underway on the Teledesic system with Motorola’s Celestri broadband satellite system. … Read More
Gov’t likely to support several standards
Top government officials, setting the stage for a showdown with Europe, said the United States likely will support multiple third-generation wireless proposals to the International Telecommunications Union in June unless a compromise can be reached soon by U.S. industry on a single standard. “If U.S. industry reached a consensus on a single standard, it could be in the industry’s interest for the U.S. government to support that standard in the ITU,” said Charlene Barshefsky, U.S. trade representative. “Without such a consensus, however, the risk of eliminating innovative technologies might be greater than the benefits of a single standard.” … Read More
Sky falls on pager service
They say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a lesson paging carriers learned in a painful way last Tuesday evening when an estimated 90 percent of all paging subscribers in the country found themselves without service due to a faulty satellite. While much paging service was restored before the end of the week, the paging industry could continue to see repercussions from the incident. … Read More
ETSI and Qualcomm may haggle over IPR
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute may be at a crossroads now that Qualcomm Inc. has outlined the terms under which it will grant intellectual property rights to wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology. ETSI in January chose W-CDMA technology, based on a Global System for Mobile communications platform, as a third-generation technology choice for mobile networks and has been determining which companies own key IPR to the new specification. While other vendors have indicated they will cooperate in offering up their IPRs under ETSI policy, Qualcomm in April said it would do so only if the ETSI proposal is converged with W-cdmaOne, a wideband technology based on Interim Standard-95 technology. This solution provides for backward compatibility. Qualcomm is an innovator and license-holder of cdmaOne technology, which has yet to make an entrance into Europe. Qualcomm claims to hold key patents to CDMA technology regardless of bandwidth. … Read More
Payphone ruling could derail PCIA’s coin-in-box option
Paging service providers that want the Federal Communications Commission to institute a coin-in-the-box mechanism for toll-free calls placed at pay phones may have a tough time convincing the major players involved in the pay-phone compensation debate, according to sources at the FCC, the Payphone Communications Alliance and AT&T Corp. A federal appeals court here told the FCC May 15 to re-evaluate its decision on pay-phone compensation but left in place current rules that require pay-phone operators to be paid 28.4 cents for each toll-free call placed from a pay phone. Many paging companies offer toll-free numbers to customers. When a customer chooses this service, people are able to place calls to the subscriber’s pager without incurring long-distance or other charges. … Read More
Swedish survey links cellphone use to ills
In two unrelated developments that could reignite the debate over whether wireless technology poses health risks, a new Swedish survey has found possible links between mobile phones and illness symptoms, while a female executive with a brain tumor has retained the largest personal-injury law firm in the United Kingdom in what could become the first pocket phone-cancer lawsuit against manufacturers there. The Swedish report and the planned lawsuit come at a time when House telecom subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) and the U.S. cellular industry are fighting efforts by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) to fund government-sponsored wireless phone-cancer research with a portion of revenue that an E911-federal land antenna-siting bill is supposed to generate. … Read More
SBC could switch wireless choice with Ameritech buy
The SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp. merger means two major cellular markets may be up for grabs.
Both companies own cellular licenses in Chicago and St. Louis, Mo., as well as surrounding licenses in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. SBC will have to sell off one license in each overlapping market before the merger is completed. The Federal Communications Commission does not allow a carrier to own more than 45 megahertz of spectrum in one market. … Read More
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