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!
Swedish survey links cell phone 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
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
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. … Read More
Telco Systems offers HDSL for backhaul
Telco Systems Inc., Norwood, Mass., is scheduled to announce Tuesday it has integrated High-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line technology from PairGain Technologies Inc., Tustin, Calif., into its access platform-an upgrade the company plans to use to further penetrate the U.S. and international wireless markets. HDSL is a technology developed by the wireline industry to provide higher-quality transmission at longer distances over existing copper lines. HDSL alleviates the need for repeaters on lines because HDSL-enabled equipment can transmit signals a distance of about 12,000 feet, according to Telco Systems. A traditional T1 line not using HDSL needs a repeater after 650 feet, said David Weissman, senior marketing manager for the company. … Read More
Wireless carriers can use CPNI, but not to win back ex-customers
The Federal Communications Commission last week said wireless carriers could indeed use customer information to market mobile handsets and so-called information services to customers who originally purchased these items from the carrier. The FCC left in place rules that restrict the use of customer information to try to win back customers who have switched to another carrier. The FCC clarified rules governing the use of so-called customer proprietary network information, or CPNI, which is the information telecommunications carriers collect about their customers, including name, address, billing and when and where calls are placed. The rules implement Section 222 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which required the FCC to develop rules to protect the privacy of telecom customers in a competitive environment. … 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. … Read More
Congress scrutinizes SBC-Ameritech engagement
Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), chairman of the Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, last week expressed strong reservations about SBC Communications Inc. Chairman Edward Whitacre Jr.’s pledge that his company’s $62 billion proposed merger with Ameritech Corp. will benefit competition and consumers. “This proposed merger has generated a strong reaction, largely because phone company mergers were not the goal of Congress when it passed the telecommunications act over two years ago,” said DeWine at the opening of last week’s hearing. Some observers see the lack of local wireline competition nearly two-and-a-half years since the law was enacted as a big opportunity for wireless carriers to tap the $100 billion local market through innovative pricing, like AT&T Wireless Services Inc.’s digital one-rate plan. … 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
Pay-phone 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
Test-equipment market re-invents itself
While the growth of the communications industry has created a great demand for test equipment, the changes to that industry have forced test-equipment manufacturers to reinvent themselves so they can meet that demand. “Our expectation (is) that strong worldwide demand for wireless and wireline telecommunications products and services should drive growth in the deployment (and) upgrade of networks, which require testing,” read a recent Moody’s Investors Service report. However, the rapid adoption of digital systems has created a vacuum of testing-equipment products that manufacturers are scrambling to fill. … Read More
