News Briefs

Pine Belt Wireless, based in Arlington, Ala., said it will introduce prepaid wireless services to its cellular and personal communications services markets using National Telemanagement Corp.’s SmartPay Wireless real-time billing system. SmartPay Wireless is an account-based system that eliminates the added expense and limitations of disposable debit cards.

Winstar Communications Inc. was awarded a metropolitan area acquisition award from the General Services Administration’s Federal Technology Service to provide data and local switched voice services to government employees in Minneapolis and St.Paul, Minn. Winstar valued the four-year contract, which includes four additional one-year options, at $60 million over eight years. This is Winstar’s eighth federal contract awarded under the MAA program, joining Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis and Indianapolis.

MobileUSA, a wireless data integrator and service provider for AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Verizon Wireless and GTE Wireless, selected Fourelle Systems Inc.’s Venturi dynamic content acceleration solution for optimizing its customers’ wireless Internet connections. Fourelle noted that in addition to employing an over-the-air data protocol, Venturi provides an image compression mechanism that reduces the time in downloading complex Web pages on wireless data networks including Cellular Digital Packet Data, Global System for Mobile communications, Code Division Multiple Access and Time Division Multiple Access technologies.

Motorola Inc. said it successfully completed an interoperability specifications (IOS) trial with Lucent Technologies Inc. on Sprint PCS’ wireless network in Portland, Ore. Motorola previously completed an IOS trial with Nortel Networks in Oklahoma City, Okla.

AT&T Wireless Services Inc. has partnered with TrafficStation Inc. to provide proactive, real-time and route-specific traffic alerts to users of the recently launched AT&T Digital PocketNet Service. The partnership offers motorists real-time, route-specific traffic and routing information. TrafficStation proactively sends personalized alerts for unexpected delays, without requiring the customer to initiate a request.

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