WASHINGTON-A government plan for personal communications services licensees to share microwave relocation costs has received qualified support from both carriers and fixed users, while providing the two warring factions a public forum to continue fighting.The Federal Communications Commission's proposal would enable initially licensed PCS...
It's the morning after.The reporter arrives at 10: 15 a.m. at the historic Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., (conveniently across 14th Street from the National Press Building) to interview the co-recipient of RCR's 1995 Person of the Year: American Personal Communications Chairman Wayne Schelle.Schelle, 61, greets...
The Federal Communications Commission on Friday was expected to propose industry-crafted reforms governing interconnection compensation arrangements between commercial mobile radio service providers and local exchange companies, and put the proposed guidelines into effect during the time the rulemaking is pending.Wireless carriers, under a reciprocal...
WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission last week approved streamlined antenna structure registration procedures that make owners rather than licensees primarily responsible for complying with construction, painting and lighting requirements.At the same time, the FCC revised antenna painting and lighting rules to conform to...
The tower industry has banded together as the National Association of Tower Erectors to address collective issues of operations and safety and to affect industry-initiated standards. The nonprofit organization represents communications tower erectors, service contractors, maintenance companies, vendors and manufacturers across the nation.Safety is...
The Antenna Co. said it now is offering a portable hands-free kit that requires the cellular subscriber to plug one end of the speaker into the phone and the other into the cigarette lighter. At the touch of a button, the wireless microphone is...
Cellular One said it introduced FreedomLink Personal Communications System to businesses in western New York. The system operates as an extension to an existing office phone system by using very low power cellular frequencies to communicate with the office's existing phone system. This enables...
American Personal Communications has cracked a deal with Baltimore Gas & Electric that will allow APC to put full-sector antenna configurations on electric transmission towers.The relationship could help APC leap over some of cellular's long-time site acquisition hurdles-zoning board battles. Electric utilities are well...
While some microwave incumbents are being unreasonable, others are negotiating fairly, reaching agreements and making plans to move their microwave links from the 2 GHz spectrum, according to telecom and utility people involved in the process."It's unfair to tarnish the image of the microwave...
While the personal communications services industry in general remains locked in a three-way split over an airlink standard for systems deployment, cable TV operators in the PCS business so far have pitched their tents in the Code Division Multiple Access camp.CDMA got a large...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission's proposed microwave relocation cost-sharing plan would free personal communications services operators of their financial obligation to 2 GHz fixed users by 2005, a policy shift that could hit rural microwave licensees hard.The PCS industry and microwave advocates each found reason...
The personal communications services industry is buzzing with discussions of technology, the consumer, equipment infrastructure, merging, financing, site acquisition, capitalization, innovation, deregulation, litigation and the list goes on.However, the tremendous job market opening up in PCS and affiliated businesses has been understated. PCS companies...
The summer's battle between the adjoining New York cities of White Plains and North Castle has ended, with the state Supreme Court ruling in favor of White Plains.The dispute began last spring when Nynex Mobile received permission from White Plains to erect a monopole...
Specialty Teleconstructors Inc. announced its purchase of Orlando Tower Service Inc., an Orlando, Fla.-based builder of transmitting and receiving facilities for wireless telecommunications providers. Consideration for the transaction totaled $135,000 in cash, consisting of two semiannual payments of $65,000 during a 12-month period. Specialty,...
A Richardson, Texas, business is offering utility companies the chance to have a two-way wireless communications network with automated meter reading without the full capital expense of building a network."Because utility companies are facing competition today, they have to protect their market as well...
Nearly half of the 20 companies holding licenses for broadband personal communications services have made firm technology decisions, but others continue the difficult task of weighing options."It is like building 10 years of cellular all at once," said Jack Finlayson, vice president and general...
Tonawanda, N.Y.-based Sinclabs, a division of Sinclair Technologies, announced its Excelsior antenna line, which consists of low band, 1/4 wave, 220 MHz, wideband UHF/VHF, cellular trunking, no ground plane and true 2dB wide band antennas. The Excelsior SVB1482 antenna is a wideband mobile antenna...
When the Federal Communications Commission began the "finder's preference" program late in 1991, it was hailed by the industry as a win-win situation. The FCC would receive help in the enforcement of its rules and the members of the industry would receive badly needed...
ierre Dogan, David Patton and Ray Nettleton Two observations can be drawn from the recent personal communications services license auctions. First, PCS participants are willing to assume enormous financial risk, on the order of tens of billions of dollars-an unprecedented level of risk-taking by...
For more than 30 years, microwave communications systems have been used by utilities, oil and gas pipeline companies, railroads and municipalities to provide basic services to the American public including energy and transportation services, heating, air conditioning, power and fuel. Even public-safety agencies rely...
Oops!Someone told the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors about language included in the House's version of the telecom reform bill that could take away some local authority over where antenna towers are placed.The associations...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission is considering abandoning the 220-222 MHz test-bed for narrowband technology in favor of a flexible licensing scheme that would permit alternative technologies for services other than dispatch such as paging, data and fixed wireless.The July 28 proposal comes in the...
WASHINGTON-Commercial wireless carriers last week fought off a challenge by two Virginia congressmen and local government officials to kill the antenna siting amendment in the House telecommunications reform bill.The legislation, significantly revised at the request of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., on behalf of...
Convergence shows its colors as cable TV provider Cox Communications Inc. charts its course into next-generation wireless telephony, underscored by its announcement last month of plans to use Code Division Multiple Access technology on its personal communications services networks.The company is a PCS pioneer's...
