WASHINGTON-The Bush administration last week proposed setting user fees on un-auctioned spectrum regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, but the agency refused to disclose which wireless services would be subject to new government taxes. The user fee proposal, included in a new White House...
WASHINGTON-Finally! Congress has told TV broadcasters that they must give up the spectrum they were given to transition to digital TV by Feb. 17, 2009. After an unexpected delay caused by an unrelated procedural move in the Senate, the House passed the Budget Reconciliation...
WASHINGTON-Finally! Congress has told TV broadcasters that they must give up the spectrum they were given to transition to digital TV by Feb. 17, 2009. After an unexpected delay caused by an unrelated procedural move in the Senate, the House passed the Budget Reconciliation...
Floating towers soon may give some rural North Dakotans better wireless voice and data coverage. Next month, Chandler, Ariz.-based Space Data Corp. is set to trial its latex communications balloons with Extend America, a North Dakota fixed broadband provider and Sprint Nextel Corp. iDEN...
The Chinese government has given its homegrown TD-SCDMA technology a thumbs up, calling it an officially backed standard, the Xinhua news agency reported. China's Ministry of Information Industry said the technology is "already mature and ready for manufacturers to move ahead with production."Industry analysts...
When Cingular Wireless L.L.C. managed to squeeze the launch of its 3G network into the last month of 2005, the move catapulted 16 major metropolitan cities into the spotlight as the most competitive 3G markets in the country. Cingular rolled out its BroadbandConnect service...
With little fanfare, T-Mobile USA Inc. has expanded the reach of its network by more than 50 percent, chiefly through 850 MHz roaming agreements that have put the carrier on more competitive footing and mark a shift from its historic 1900 MHz-only platform. Most...
WASHINGTON-The wireless industry was as close to getting its hands on 700 MHz spectrum as it ever has been. A hard date had been set for auctioning broadcast spectrum as part of the transition to digital TV services. The House and the Senate had...
It's time for New Year's resolutions: stop smoking, lose weight, get to the gym more often, and all sort of other well-meaning pledges that fade by February. As the shutters close on the Christmas selling season and carriers look to the projects, projections and...
WASHINGTON-The wireless industry was as close to getting its hands on 700 MHz spectrum as it ever has been. A hard date had been set for auctioning broadcast spectrum as part of the transition to digital TV services. The House and the Senate had...
Opinions are not hard to come by in the ongoing debate between proponents of GSM and CDMA technologies. It's easy to get caught up in questions about which technology is better, which one is growing faster, which one will take over the world. But...
Sprint Nextel Corp. took a significant step in fulfilling chief executive Gary Forsee's plans to expand the carrier's reach into other media distribution channels, and at the same time may have altered the balance of the wireless industry. Following months of speculation, Sprint Nextel...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission last week approved rules implementing relocation fund legislation approved by Congress last December, a move that paves the way to auction third-generation wireless licenses in June 2006. The guidelines require the Department of Defense and other federal agencies to be...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission today unanimously approved rules implementing relocation fund legislation approved by Congress last December, a move that paves the way for the auction of third-generation mobile-phone licenses in June 2006.The guidelines require the Department of Defense and other federal agencies to...
RESTON, Va.-NII Holdings Inc., partially owned by Nextel Communications Inc., said several 800 MHz licenses that it won in a Mexican auction have been transferred to the company. The company acquired an additional 15 megahertz of spectrum per basic service area, bringing NII's average...
WASHINGTON-A coalition of nine local and public-safety advocacy groups, led by the Association of Public-safety Communications Officials, released a statement urging Congress to pass a hard date to end TV's transition to digital technology."We are writing to remind Congress that this issue is not...
The rash of consolidation and spectrum deals that have recently swept through the wireless industry could have a substantial impact on the Federal Communications Commission's Auction 58 set for late January, as the carriers with a history of being the most aggressive bidders have...
WASHINGTON-No matter who is the next president, Congress is going to look at reforming the Telecommunications Act of 1996, said panelists Tuesday morning at a breakfast panel."I think a telecom re-write will happen. It doesn't matter whether Ralph Nader is president, telecom reform is...
WASHINGTON-Legg Mason Inc., which owns just over 9 percent of the stock for Nextel Communications Inc., said Monday it expects Nextel to accept the Federal Communications Commission's plan to solve public-safety interference in the 800 MHz band."Once the order is published in the Federal...
WASHINGTON-Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) wants excess revenue from a future third-generation mobile-phone auction to help fund deployment of enhanced 911 service, according to sources. The plan could potentially complicate passage of relocation fund legislation previously hamstrung by a controversial amendment that...
NextWave Telecom Inc.'s announcement last week that it would give back 60 of its PCS licenses to the Federal Communications Commission could finally give the government a clear path to auction the licenses to a spectrum-starved industry. But unlike the FCC's previous attempt to...
WASHINGTON-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told the Federal Communications Commission recently that any plan to solve the public-safety interference problem in the 800 MHz band must be self financing, and if an allocation of replacement spectrum is necessary, an...
WASHINGTON-Ten years after Congress authorized auctions to award wireless permits, the market-based licensing scheme continues be a magnet for those needing funding for pet projects, but the Federal Communications Commission's strong embrace of intelligent radio technology and commercial exploitation of unlicensed spectrum could force...
WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell told Congress he is opposed to an amendment in a spending bill that would exempt from spectrum auction an application of a wireless startup with strong political connections to provide digital broadcast service to rural areas using hybrid...
