HOUSTON-Crown Castle International Corp. said it has acquired 619 wireless communications towers from Powertel Inc. for approximately $262 million in cash.The agreement provides Powertel with a 10-year lease, with three five-year renewal terms. Crown Castle said it will receive $1,800 per month per tower...
TAMPA, Fla.-BellSouth International Wireless Services announced five North American carriers, including BellSouth Mobility, converted to the BSI-WS International Settlement and Exchange Service.The BellSouth service provides international wireless roaming date-clearing. It also provides a secure Web-based reporting system, which provides immediate delivery of clearing reports...
Qualcomm Inc. announced Nashville-based Star Transportation Inc. replaced its multimode, satellite and land-based communication system with Qualcomm's OmniTracs satellite-based information-management system. Star already has installed more than 430 OmniTracs units, said Qualcomm. OmniTracs is a mobile communications and tracking system that provides real-time messaging...
RICHARDSON, Texas-Ericsson Inc. won a $750 million contract to supply equipment to 14 BellSouth Cellular Corp. markets, including Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.Ericsson will provide base stations, software, services, handsets and 17 switches that will be used to direct calls at 1,400...
BETHESDA, Md.-Mobeo Inc. announced it signed a software license agreement with Comstar Inc., under which Comstar may market the mobeo 1.0 interactive stock quote service.Comstar said it will sell the stock information service to existing and new customers in the New York metropolitan market,...
The Operators Harmonization Group, an ad hoc assembly of mobile phone operators from around the world, sent its third-generation technology harmonization proposal to the International Telecommunication Union, which meets in Beijing this week.As RCR reported, the agreement defines a harmonized CDMA standard with three...
The paging industry last week experienced a flurry of major resale deals involving several large carriers.BellSouth Corp. followed paging carriers Metrocall Inc., AirTouch Paging and Arch Communications Group Inc. in reselling airtime on PageMart Wireless Inc.'s ReFLEX 25 advanced messaging network.BellSouth announced it is...
A dispute between the Greater Harris County (Texas) 9-1-1 Network and Houston Cellular concerning a Phase II enhanced 911 deployment in Houston could be headed to court.GHC 9-1-1 last week filed a lawsuit claiming one of Houston Cellular's owners, BellSouth Cellular Corp., interfered with...
U S West Inc.'s and Global Crossing Ltd.'s marriage announcement last week leaves BellSouth Corp. the only Baby Bell not betrothed in the telecommunications industry."There no longer is a need for a regional Bell operating company or a local exchange carrier because today, we...
WASHINGTON-In order to be effective in the next millennium, the Federal Communications Commission must reorganize itself to better deal with converging industries, according to many panelists taking part in two discussions last Thursday afternoon.The FCC held a public forum on "A new FCC for...
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...
HOUSTON-Crown Castle International Corp. raised $850 million last week from the sale of two 12-year note issues totaling $482 million and a secondary offering of 21 million shares of common stock priced at $17.50 each.Goldman, Sachs and Co. and Salomon Smith Barney jointly led...
ATLANTA-BellSouth Mobility Inc. announced it will offer General Magic Inc.'s Portico voice recognition-based virtual personal assistant to its customers through a four-month limited deployment, beginning in the Atlanta market.The Atlanta deployment essentially is a market trial, during which BellSouth will evaluate the service and...
In the May 10 issue of RCR, the device used with American Mobile Satellite Corp.'s new eLink service should have been identified as the RIM 850 from Research In Motion Ltd.RIM makes both the 950 Interactive Pager and the 850, essentially the same device...
American Mobile Satellite Corp. introduced a service called eLink, a two-way wireless messaging application with integrated personal information manager functions.Using a modified version of the RIM 950 pager from Research In Motion Ltd., the eLink service will use AMSC's Ardis wireless packet data network.Other...
After securing purchase-leaseback deals with BellSouth Cellular Corp. and Powertel Inc., Crown Castle International Corp. capped off its first quarter with significant increases in revenues and cash flow.Total revenues increased 366 percent to $55.1 million, compared with revenues of $11.8 million during last year's...
As telecommunications carriers' revenues are under attack in light of increased competition, BellSouth Corp. has found a way to generate billions marketing its intellectual property to other companies."BellSouth is spending millions developing state-of-the-art technologies like Caller ID for traditional customers," said Scott M. Frank,...
Sirius CommunicationsSirius Communications NV introduced the DataSat Code Division Multiple Access development system. It offers an alternative to today's very small aperture terminal systems. It works with all existing satellite bands, and TV satellite receiver antennas may be used to receive the signals. The...
Faced with an uncertain future and many difficult questions, members of the Paging Leadership Association met last month in Florida to determine how the industry should position itself in a game that is moving in an increasing number of new directions."The big question is...
The transition of control of cell sites from wireless carriers to independent tower companies is accelerating, and build-to-suit companies increasingly are getting the call from carriers to handle the buildout of their networks.Most industry watchers agree the transition is good for carriers and tower...
Motorola Inc. announced Office Depot will begin carrying the PageWriter 2000 two-way pager in more than 600 retail locations nationwide.TSR Wireless L.L.C. said it has built a ReFLEX 25 two-way messaging network on the West Coast, adding coverage in southern California and into Nevada....
DENVER, United States-The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should narrow down in about six months which frequency bands it could allocate for third-generation mobile phone services.The World Administrative Radiocommunication Conference is 14 months away, and the United States wants to forge a position on additional...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-Chile, which became the first country in Latin America in 1998 to implement PCS, has just felt the tremor of three new events in its market that could impact growth and market positioning.Calling party pays (CPP) was introduced 23 February, BellSouth bought...
The recent battles at the Federal Communications Commission between AirCell Inc. and the cellular carriers that oppose its air-to-ground communications system may be starting to affect AirCell's business.In a letter sent to Steve Weingarten of the Commercial Wireless Division of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau,...
