HONG KONG-In January, the Hong Kong government awarded five licenses for wireless fixed telecommunications network services (FTNS), signaling a major advance in Internet access.The licensees will use base stations to transmit voice, data and video signals via microwave links to rooftop antenna dishes on...
Agilent TechnologiesAgilent Technologies Inc. introduced a number of new test-solution products and made improvements to others. The Agilent 84000 RFIC series model A20E is a low-cost test solution developed specifically for high-volume semiconductor manufacturers that make radio-frequency power-amplifier integrated circuits used in cell phones...
HONG KONG-Pacific Century CyberWorks, the Asian Internet company vying for a tie-up with Cable & Wireless HKT, raised more than $1 billion through a share placement. The funds could help PCCW's possible bid for Cable & Wireless HKT and thwart a partnership between HKT...
Is it a bird? A plane? No, it's Craig McCaw, swooping in to rescue yet another struggling satellite wireless phone company-leading a group of investors to provide $74.6 million in interim financing for the bankrupt Iridium L.L.C.This is McCaw's second performance in his satellite...
HONG KONG-An Asian Internet company is looking to block the proposed merger between Cable & Wireless HKT Ltd. and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., Reuters reported. Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd. hinted that it could launch a competing bid for Cable & Wireless HKT, one of six...
LONDON-British Telecommunications plc and Telenor AS announced they have reached an agreement regarding Ireland's Esat Telecom and its wireless arm Esat Digifone. BT is acquiring a 49.5-percent stake in Esat Telecom for $2.5 billion, trumping an earlier $1.9 billion hostile takeover bid by Telenor.Under...
DALLAS-Texas Instruments Inc. and ARM Ltd. last week announced plans to collaborate on developing a digital signal processor and microcontroller platform for use in next-generation wireless information devices, including smart phones, personal communicators and wireless Internet-enabled products.TI and ARM have worked together since 1993...
GENEVA-Russia's Gazprom, the world's largest supplier of natural gas, is completing the final stages of a $100 million trunked radio network built to service gas drilling towns located in one of the most remote and inhospitable regions on the planet.Covering an area of more...
HELSINKI-Nokia Networks, the infrastructure arm of Nokia Corp., said it and Mitsubishi Electric initiated interoperability testing between their products and solutions supporting the Wireless Application Protocol 1.1.The intent of the tests is to enhance the compatibility of WAP-based products and services, ensuring they will...
HONG KONG-Even though the Chinese paging market is teeming with around 1,700 operators, the market remains heavily regulated. Even paging operators in the well-heeled southern and southeastern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang continue to face the same strict regulations as their counterparts...
Phone.com added to its mounting momentum by signing a definitive agreement to buy the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) products and operations of infrastructure software company APiON of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The deal provides an entry point to Phone.com for selling its WAP products to...
WASHINGTON-Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), ranking minority member of the Governmental Affairs Committee, called for a congressional investigation into whether mobile phones pose a health risk to the nation's 80 million subscribers."In the last five years, the numbers of Americans using cellular telephones has increased...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) were thwarted last week in their attempts to attach language to the FCC spending bill that would allow the government to take back licenses from bankrupt operators.The conference committee charged with melding together the House...
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-Six cellular phone companies, including a consortium led by South Africa's MTN, have been prequalified by Kenya's Communications Commission to bid for a second mobile phone license in the country.However, mixed signals about deregulation are being conveyed by Kenyan Transport and Communications...
GTE Wireless has taken an aggressive approach to combating fraud in its markets, an initiative that has resulted in an 83-percent reduction in fraud losses during the last two years.The company has a highly integrated, four-pronged approach to dealing with fraud that takes the...
HONG KONG-Paging subscriber numbers continue to fall in Hong Kong, while the popularity of cellular keeps rising as stiff competition among the six cellular carriers drives down tariffs close to those of paging. Handsets, now in all shapes as well as prices, also are...
NEW YORK-Citigroup and Sonera Ltd. announced last week they are taking an undisclosed ownership stake in 724 Solutions, a Canadian software company that is hardly a household name but could hold the key to global mobile banking.Juha Snellman, director of sales and marketing for...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission last week rejected a telecommunications industry proposal to use a product-line approach to make telecom products accessible to the estimated 54 million Americans with disabilities.The FCC "certainly rejected the product-line approach by name, but what they seem to be saying...
DUBLIN, Ireland-One of the most common complaints from telecommunications companies competing with former monopoly operators is cross-subsidization by the incumbent, particularly in countries where the incumbent also controls a major cellular operator. However, regulators across Europe have been tackling this issue, and it now...
ATLANTA-Southern LINC, the digital wireless communications services arm of energy company Southern Co., announced plans to offer a suite of wireless data and Internet services beginning this fall.Southern LINC, which offers service using integrated Digital Enhanced Network technology, is beta testing the wireless data...
In recent months, several alliances and partnerships have been formed among paging carriers that traditionally have been fierce competitors. But both analysts and carriers say this new teamwork in no way diminishes the competitive spirit among the industry players, but rather is a unified...
U.S. Global System for Mobile communications carriers took a financial beating in 1998, but analysts expect 1999 to look brighter for these carriers as they look to butter up their bottom lines and find strategic partners.Tight financing, high churn levels and a general under-performance...
WASHINGTON-Notwithstanding the Federal Communications Commission's findings last week that the rollout of advanced technologies is "reasonable and timely," Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), chairman of the Senate communications subcommittee, plans to introduce legislation this month to prod the FCC to do more.Burns was not-at-all happy...
SAN JOSE, Calif.-VLSI Technology Inc. reported fourth-quarter revenues of $137.9 million, an increase of 5.4 percent from third-quarter 1998, revenues of $130.8 million and a decrease of 28.5 percent from the $193 million reported for the same quarter a year before.Net income for the...
