NEW YORK-When it comes to smart cards, potential consumer demand is the proverbial tail wagging the dog of available supply, according to Avi Zahavi, chairman of the Smart Card Forum's telephony work group.Right behind secure storage of their medical insurance and health information, consumers...
Lucent Technologies Inc.'s Microelectronics Group said its new system-on-a-chip process could result in wireless phones that operate for a month without needing recharging.The company announced a .13 micron fabrication process that will offer communications chips with density and power at cost-effective levels. Using module...
Recent developments in Japan suggest standards leaders there realize they must deal with the cdma2000 third-generation proposal.
Japan's standards body, the Association of Radio Businesses (ARIB), recently concluded that both W-CDMA, based on the GSM platform, and cdma2000 third-generation proposals are valid proposals and meet...
While the short-term forecast for wireless operators in financially troubled parts of the world could be turbulent, carriers remain optimistic the wireless industry will weather the current financial crisis without many lasting repercussions.Stock markets around the globe-in Europe, Japan, Latin America and the United...
AUSTIN, Texas-Motorola Inc. introduced a new chip last week designed to bring paging capability to personal digital assistants and other devices not traditionally used for paging.The MMC2080 chip can fully support the new G1.9 FLEX specification by combining a FLEX paging decoder and an...
WANDEL & GOLTERMANNRadMan is a personal safety monitor introduced by German company Wandel & Goltermann that measures electric and magnetic fields in any direction. RadMan monitors the limit values established by control boards and gives an alarm if the levels are exceeded. The monitor...
Chances are slim to none that U.S. mobile phone operators will agree on one standard for the next generation of mobile phone services.Already fragmented with three different digital standards-cdmaOne, TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile communications)-the United States is...
TOKYO-In reaction to the Japanese government's announcement it will limit to three in each district the number of carriers providing IMT-2000 services, cellular carriers here have started playing musical chairs, struggling to get one of the three seats by forming new strategic partnerships.NTT DoCoMo,...
While satellite news of late primarily has focused on voice and data services, broadband satellite communications services are expected to play an increasingly important role in the next 10 years, eventually commanding a $2.7 billion market by 2007, according to a report by Allied...
SAN JOSE, Calif.-U.S. semiconductor companies maintained their share of the Japanese chip market during the first quarter of 1998 despite the economic slowdown there, said the Semiconductor Industry Association.The numbers from the U.S. Department of Commerce and United States Trade Representative showed the overall...
L.M. Ericsson head Sven-Christer Nilsson told the Japanese press late last week his company will continue negotiations with Qualcomm Inc. and said it is ready to reach some form of compromise over intellectual property rights to third-generation technology.Ericsson spokeswoman Kathy Egan said the company...
IBM Corp. last week introduced a new process for building high-speed transistors that could translate into smaller wireless phones.The process, called silicon-on-insulator, places a thin layer of silicon on top of an insulator such as silicon-oxide or glass in chips. Transistors then are built...
Though most are based on some form of wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology, the proposals submitted to the International Telecommunication Union last month suggest a tough road toward achieving the family of systems concept to allow for global roaming, let alone convergence of...
SAN DIEGO-Qualcomm Inc. said its MSM2310 Mobile Station Modem, a single-chip, tri-mode vocoder solution supporting Enhanced Variable Rate Vocoder is available in production quantities.A derivative of Qualcomm's MSM2300, the MSM2310 supports all three Code Division Multiple Access vocoders and provides smooth integration from the...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-For a while it looked as if the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU's) original vision of a single global standard for third-generation mobile networks could be possible. Everyone was talking about harmonization, about submitting common proposals to the ITU's radio transmission technology selection...
SINGAPORE-The International Telecommunication Union has some difficult work ahead of it to harmonize the various third-generation proposals standards bodies around the world will submit by tomorrow.While most of the world's standards bodies and individual groups of companies diligently tried to hammer out the differences...
Competition among companies that supply digital signal processors to the wireless industry is beginning to heat up with new alliances and investments changing the competitive landscape.IBM Corp.'s Microelectronics division last week announced it will pump $100 million into several new initiatives designed to expand...
An indoor solution to wireless electronic asset tracking that uses digital radio-frequency technology to locate personnel and property has been developed by PinPoint Corp., a fledgling company based in Bedford, Mass.Outdoor tracking of vehicles, personnel and equipment has long been available using global positioning...
VLSI Technology Inc. today announced it is shipping samples of its new Code Division Multiple Access chip solution, which it is calling the first real alternative to Qualcomm Inc.'s CDMA chip products.The CDMA+ product is about the size of a dime and includes the...
Motorola Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. have formed an alliance to jointly develop next-generation digital signal processing technology, a move that is expected to jump-start third-generation mobile phone technology.Motorola's semiconductor segment and Lucent's Microelectronics Group next quarter plan to create a joint design center,...
WASHINGTON-Telecom mergers, traditionally seen as threatening by organized labor, have become major platforms for unions and civil-rights groups to push their agendas and try to leverage concessions.As the Communications Workers of America and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition weigh in on telecom mega mergers, wireless...
Wideband cdmaOne will play a small part in the proposal Japan's standards body will submit to the International Telecommunications Union as a third-generation technology choice.The Association of Radio Businesses and Industries, ARIB, has been trying to converge wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology, based...
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...
Several leading telecommunications and computer industry companies last week announced a technology platform that would allow all types of mobile devices to communicate with each other without cable connections.Companies including Intel Corp., IBM Corp., Toshiba Corp., Nokia Corp. and L.M. Ericsson are participating in...
