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!
GOP seeks to scale down the FCC
WASHINGTON-Are rumors of the Federal Communications Commission’s impending demise exaggerated? Perhaps, perhaps not. The FCC is unlikely to go anywhere today, tomorrow or the next day. But a few years down the road, as the transition in the telecommunications industry from regulation to competition takes hold-if, in fact, it does, and Republicans maintain control of Congress, big changes could be in store for the FCC. “It is a legitimate question of the regulatory process to ask whether the agency which governs over the industry has a role well into the future,” said Adam Thierer, an Alex C. Walker Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Until now, it’s been unclear how much of the mounting rhetoric about dismantling the FCC has been partisan and how much has been the kind of serious discourse that manifested itself in sweeping legislative reforms during the first 100 days of Congress under House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. Proponents of abolishing the FCC argue the Justice Department can address marketplace aberrations and rely heavily on spread spectrum technology’s ability to allow open sharing of the airwaves. “Bandwidth is bandwidth,” they insist, and its use should be determined by the free market rather than by government. It is said the computer industry, which has flourished without government oversight, should be the model for the telecommunications industry. … Read more
Weather alerts by pager for Florida users
SAN FRANCISCO-AirTouch Paging, a subsidiary of AirTouch Communications, introduced Weather-Watch, an emergency information planning service. The service provides information on severe weather conditions as they develop throughout the state of Florida. Weather-Watch uses wireless communications to report National Weather Service advisories within seconds of transmission, 24-hours-a-day. Service subscribers are equipped with an alphanumeric pager and receive a steady flow of weather alerts and advisories. … Read more
Japan gets four new cellular networks
More than 50 million people in the Asia-Pacific region will be subscribing to cellular services by the year 2004, and as many as 66 million will be carrying pagers, according to a new report from London-based CIT Research Ltd. In “Mobile Communications in Asia & the Pacific 1995,” CIT notes the mobile communications boom in the region is only just beginning, but cautions that the region is as diverse as it is populous. Gross domestic product per capita ranges from $370 in China to $37,000 in Japan, while regulatory regimes vary from the most liberal to the most draconian. The biggest revenue-generating mobile service in the region is cellular telephony. In 1994, the region’s population spent more than $10 billion on cellular connections, subscriptions and calls, the report said. In June 1994, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. signed up more new subscribers for its cellular services than for its public switched telephone network lines for the first time ever. More than half of the money-close to $6 billion-was made in Japan. CIT credits the deregulation of the cellular terminal market, which allowed subscribers to buy terminals rather than rent them, for the boom. The report noted that in June 1994, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. signed up more new subscribers for its cellular services than for its public switched telephone network lines for the first time ever. Japan saw four new digital cellular networks premiere in 1994, joining the one started in 1993 by NTT. … Read more
Qualcomm bundles satellite service with tracking apps
SAN DIEGO-Qualcomm Inc. said it has a agreement with Orbcomm US, an affiliate of Orbital Sciences Corp., giving Qualcomm the right to resell Orbcomm’s new mobile satellite communication services with Qualcomm’s OmniTracs trailer tracking and cargo monitoring applications. Orbcomm said it successfully launched its first two satellites and will be conducting a series of tests over the next three months. Qualcomm will be conducting beta tests during the second half of this year, with commercial shipments expected in early 1996, the company said. Qualcomm said the new technology will provide customers with expanded capabilities to track and monitor disconnected trailers, including position reporting to within 500 meters and exception-based messaging, such as an alert for unauthorized trailer movement. “The combination of Qualcomm’s technology and Orbcomm’s new satellite capabilities will enable the trucking industry to reach a whole new level of efficiency,” according to Alan Parker, president of Orbcomm US. Qualcomm said its resale rights will be exclusive in selected U.S. market segments and the agreement represents a new era in trailer tracking capabilities. … Read more
Looking ahead to intelligent vehicle systems
The day when the typical commuter will speed through toll booths at 60 miles per hour, nimbly maneuvering through traffic with the aid of radar-based warnings of possible dangers, now is much nearer, thanks to recent actions taken by the Federal Communications Commission. Specifically, the FCC has recently adopted permanent rules for the location and monitoring service, formerly known as automatic vehicle monitoring, allocated 25 megahertz of spectrum for a proposed new general wireless communications service and has issued a pending proposed rulemaking to allocate 3.2 gigahertz of spectrum for vehicle collision-avoidance radar systems. These actions are part of a larger effort to speed up the development of intelligent transportation systems, or ITS (formerly known primarily as intelligent vehicle-highway systems, or IVHS). In a nutshell, ITS is a broad concept encompassing a wide range of wireless communications systems, sensor technologies and computerization to vastly improve vehicle safety and enhance the efficiency of the nation’s surface transportation system. ITS itself is not a technology or a service, but rather joins many diverse technologies and applications-many of which require radio spectrum to work. Each year, approximately 40,000 Americans are killed in automobile accidents, and another 5 million injured. In addition, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that lost productivity due to traffic congestion alone is some $100 billion per year-not even including the costs of wasted fuel and pollution. In an effort to reduce these costs, in 1991 Congress passed the IVHS Act, which authorizes funding in research and development through 1997. Hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private funds already have been spent on R&D. … Read more
PriCellular, Southwestern Bell form JV
NEW YORK-PriCellular Corp. and Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems Inc. have formed a joint venture in which PriCellular will contribute its cellular properties in the Laredo, Texas, metropolitan statistical area and Southwestern Bell will contribute its properties in Illinois 4 and 6 rural service areas. Under the agreement, PriCellular said it will receive payments during a four- year-period rising from $3.3 million to $5.8 million in the last year. It will have an option to remain in the joint venture at the end of that period or sell the property to Southwestern Bell at prices beginning at $28.5 million and escalating to $39 million at the end of the four years. PriCellular said it will own 44.5 percent of the combined 566,000 population base, or 252,000 net pops. Southwestern Bell will have operating control of the properties. “This venture with Southwestern Bell will best serve the cellular subscribers in both the Laredo MSA and the Illinois RSAs,” said PriCellular President Robert Price. “We believe that the cellular skills of SBC will enhance the performance in the areas covered by the joint venture and we have an attractive exit strategy if we desire. The additional “pops” brings us above the 2 million pop mark and sets our next corporate hurdle at the 2.5 million mark, which we hope to achieve in 1995.” … Read more
Check out the RCR Wireless News Archives for more stories from the past.
