Navigating the September trade-show scene is going to be a challenge for the wireless industry.The two major trade associations are sponsoring shows the same week targeting the same audience. Initially, it just looked like exhibitors and attendees would have some trouble figuring out the...
The Federal Communications Commission has extended the preliminary determination period for wireless carriers wishing to comply with the digital wiretap act from March 31 to Sept. 30. The public notice lists those carriers that have satisfied the requirements to warrant an extension and those...
WASHINGTON-The wireless industry last week received the strongest indication to date that securing third-generation mobile-phone spectrum will be difficult if not impossible, as an eclectic mix of military, educational, religious and fixed wireless licensees voiced serious reservations about leaving their frequencies to make room...
WASHINGTON-Telecommunications carriers, especially small rural wireless carriers, are fighting against a proposal from the Federal Communications Commission to charge for telephone numbers."There exists no congressional mandate to charge for numbering resources. A market-based number allocation system is not competitively neutral, as is suggested by...
Like any healthy, enterprising entity, the wireless broadband industry is comprised of various companies and associations with products to push and agendas to satisfy. The industry's quest for a single, standardized technology is peppered with individual desires, but the final goal is all the...
In a move to transform itself into the chief platform enabler among software developers and carriers, Qualcomm Inc. has developed an open, CDMA-based technology that will allow third-party users to write applications for mobile phones from a variety of vendors.The product, known as Binary...
It has been less than 20 years since the first commercial cellular phone call was completed in the United States.The date was Oct. 13, 1983. Bob Barnett, then president of Ameritech Mobile Communications Inc., placed a call from a Chrysler convertible at Soldier Field...
AnywhereYouGo.com, an online community Web site dedicated to wireless application developers with physical testing labs in the United Kingdom and the United States, may not make it to its first anniversary.The wireless developer organization that launched at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Associations Wireless...
WASHINGTON-While most believe the specialized mobile radio industry seems to be disappearing along with its companion regulatory issues, one SMR operator believes that if this is true, it is the fault of the Federal Communications Commission."Why is there less spectrum allocated for SMR? There...
WASHINGTON-If Al Gore becomes the next president of the United States, as polls increasingly are suggesting, Big Telecom could gain unprecedented access to the White House and have extraordinary influence on high-tech policy for the next four years.It's not that Big Telecom is any...
WASHINGTON-A Clinton administration aide last week denied that industry or political pressure has played a part in delaying the issuance of a White House report advocating mobile phones and other wireless technologies for alerting citizens of emergencies like tornadoes, hurricanes and chemical spills.The delay...
WASHINGTON-The Baltimore law firm that earlier this month filed a mobile-phone cancer lawsuit against several wireless firms and two industry trade associations is expected to file additional lawsuits as early as this week, according to sources. The lawsuits could be filed in Georgia and...
Wall Street insiders may lose some of their edge after a ruling last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission preventing officials of public companies from providing information to select people before releasing it to the general public."High quality and timely information is the...
The Federal Communications Commission has extended by 45 days the deadline by which carriers must report their telephone number utilization. A coalition of telecommunications trade associations had urged the FCC to extend the Aug. 1 deadline by 90 days.The FCC told the chairman of...
Legislation by Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) to prevent the Federal Communications Commission from approving the transfer of licenses from an American telecommunications company, such as VoiceStream Wireless Corp., was included in the FCC spending bill last week.The FCC was successful last week in its...
Fires, floods, avalanches, carjackings. Disaster at every turn. This is everyday Americana?Yes, according to CTIA head Tom Wheeler at last week's CTIA's Wireless Foundation Awards dinner honoring 51 VITA Award winners. (OK, Wheeler didn't say it exactly that way.)Wheeler was praising-as well he should-51...
WASHINGTON-The wireless and wireline industries are battling it out at the Federal Communications Commission over how much they should pay to connect the other's calls.Sprint PCS asked the FCC in February to change the way reciprocal compensation is calculated when traffic goes from a...
WASHINGTON-The Land Mobile Communications Council has asked the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a rule that LMCC says should significantly reduce the number of faulty coordination complaints the FCC receives."The coordination trigger proposed here represents a sensible rule of the road which advantages no...
They may be working closer these days, but make no mistake about it, the GSM Association, the CDMA Development Group and the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium remain strong competitors.All three associations will convene this week in Las Vegas at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association's...
WASHINGTON-A proposal from the Federal Communications Commission to fund telephone service for Native Americans has come under fire from both inside the commission and the wireless trade associations.FCC Chairman William Kennard and FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani joined President Clinton last week in Shiprock, N.M.,...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission has reduced the minimum bid amounts for the June 14 auction of 104 guard-band licenses in the 700 MHz band.The maximum opening bid will now be $623,000 for the two megahertz license and $1,245,000 for the four megahertz license. Both...
WASHINGTON-Accenting its message with pastel-colored beanbag mobile phones, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association told Capitol Hill last week that competition is king.The trade association again delivered a set of nine stuffed phones-representing the number of potential wireless licensees in a market-to members of Congress,...
A corporate merger is not unlike a marriage. Two separate parties enter the union with two individual identities, and emerge from the ceremony as one entity, committed to achieving common goals and bearing a common name.The wireless industry witnessed the engagement last week of...
WASHINGTON-Wireless carriers were largely exempted, for now, from rules adopted last Friday by the Federal Communications Commission to establish thousand-number block pooling in an effort to reduce the ever-increasing need for new area codes.Thousand-number block pooling would change the way numbers are allocated and...
