BEIJING—China Unicom expects nine out of the 19 firms licensed to produce CDMA handsets to be able to start production by the end of this year and be able to …

AUCKLAND, New Zealand—Vodafone New Zealand selected Nortel Networks to provide a packet backbone network that will connect Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington and allow the carrier to offer new secure services …

BEIJING, China—China Mobile has awarded Nortel Networks a contract of about US$78 million to expand its GSM cellular network in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region, and execute software upgrades in Xinjiang …

TOKYO—Sanyo Electric, a leading electronics manufacturer in Japan, and Eastman Kodak Company, on 4 December announced they will set up a joint venture for developing an organic light emitting diode …

LONDON—NEC has denied a report in the World Street Journal that it plans to put off the launch of its third-generation (3G) mobile-phone handsets in 2002 to between September and …

BOYNTON BEACH, Florida, United States—Ending months of speculation, Motorola announced it is exiting the ReFLEX paging business by the middle of next year, an industry the company played a major …

SAN DIEGO and NEW YORK—The Wireless Multimedia Forum (WMF) completed a six-month interoperability trial that included five wireless multimedia vendors, including PacketVideo and Emblaze Systems. The six-month test included encoding …

STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Ericsson said it will develop the next-generation network for Inmarsat’s Broadband Global Area Network planned for launch in 2004. The contract value is US$55 million. Ericsson’s equipment will provide …

LONDON—The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) published its fourth-quarter mobile portals survey, which includes Latin American mobile portals for the first time. Nine regional portals are featured covering Argentina, Brazil, …

TORONTO—BCE is propping up its mobile-phone subsidiary Bell Canada International by putting in up to C$500 million (US$317 million) to meet financial obligations of C$1.3 billion (US$824 million) due in …

DENVER, United States—Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens said they signed long-term contracts with U.S. carrier Cingular Wireless to supply significant portions of the carrier’s GSM/General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)/Enhanced Data Rates …

NEW YORK—Winstar Communications auctioned off its assets 5 December at the offices of Winstar counsel Shearman & Sterling in New York. As previously reported, Winstar announced it would seek court …

WASHINGTON—Finkelstein, Thompson & Loughran filed a securities fraud class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of purchasers of XO Communications. The defendants …

PITTSBURGH, United States—U.S. operator Alltel will use Marconi’s wireless network planning tools to optimize its existing network and to plan for the rollout of its next-generation 1x network. Marconi said …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Cell C, the third South African mobile network operator, announced its postpaid offerings and tariffs 15 days after going live with its prepaid products. Since 17 November, the …

OXFORD, United Kingdom, and TOKYO—An agreement made last year between Siemens and Toshiba to co-develop a wideband-CDMA (W-CDMA) handset has been “deferred.” Siemens, which claimed the project had never been …

BEIJING—Two regulations banning foreign investment in China’s telecom carriers will be abolished on 11 December, when China effectively joins the World Trade Organization (WTO). The two regulations are the “Provisional …

OXFORD, United Kingdom—The newly floated European mobile operator mm02 confirmed its timescale for launching third-generation (3G) services is at least six months behind schedule. The company is now saying that …

NEW DELHI, India—The fate of a 4.5 million line GSM tender floated by the government-owned BSNL hangs in balance as the governmental Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is insisting on price …

MOSCOW—The biggest Russian carrier Mobile Telesystems (MTS) has reportedly reached a deal to buy a controlling interest in the fourth-biggest regional carrier, Kuban GSM, in the southern Krasnodar region with …