BellSouth Wireless Data L.P. marks its re-entry into the paging market this week with the commercial debut of its two-way Interactive Paging Service.The service uses the new Inter@ctive 950 pager designed by Research In Motion. RIM's wearable, two-way pager features a variety of improvements...
WASHINGTON-The Department of Justice last week said BellSouth Corp. has not yet opened up its markets sufficiently enough to offer long-distance service in Louisiana.The regional Bell operating company applied last month to offer long distance in Louisiana based on, among other things, the strength...
ATLANTA-BellSouth Mobility DCS is offering two new wireless products for international business travelers-Bosch's World 718 Mobile Phone and DCS Fax Mailbox service.Bosch's world phone operates on both 900 MHz and 1900 MHz Global System for Mobile communications frequency bands, allowing customers to travel abroad...
The government of Peru and telecommunications company Telefonica del Peru earlier this month agreed to end the company's monopoly on conventional telephone service, according to published reports.Telefonica del Peru provides local, long-distance, wireless, paging and cable TV services in the country. Its monopoly on...
The first half of this year has produced several landscape-changing events in the wireless industry. If completed, the proposed mergers between SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp. could put several significant cellular markets up for grabs by...
WOODBRIDGE, N.J.-BellSouth Wireless Data announced it offers frame-relay connectivity to its nationwide Intelligent Wireless NetworkSM."For companies that already have frame relay, our company is providing an efficient and cost-effective way for them to extend their business into the wireless paradigm," said Tom D'Alleva, director...
Flexibility may be coming to a base station near you.Most base stations today are built to accommodate only one or two wireless technologies, but a relatively new concept may allow carriers to reconfigure base stations to support a variety of standards and applications.Software radios...
Research In Motion is expected to introduce a next-generation version of its Inter@ctive two-way messaging device, code-named Leapfrog, sometime this month.The new model is closer to the size of a traditional two-way pager than the original model and retains the full Qwerty keyboard style....
Meeting its planned mid-1998 launch deadline, General Magic Inc. began commercial rollout of its Portico virtual assistant service July 30 through a network of nationwide resellers.Portico, formerly code-named Serengeti, is a second-generation virtual assistant that General Magic hopes will allow it to take advantage...
The government of Brazil received premiums of more than 200 percent over minimum bid requirements on some of the cellular properties it auctioned off last week.The sealed-bid auction last Wednesday that split Telecomunicacoes Brasileiros S.A. (Telebras) among several international and local players earned the...
Total paging subscribers will reach 68.9 million by year-end 2002, according to The Strategis Group report, "The State of the U.S. Paging Industry: 1998."Of that number, 60.5 million are expected to be one-way subscribers and 8.4 million advanced messaging and narrowband personal communications services customers....
Applied Cellular Technology Inc. formed an executive search committee to fill the position of president and chief executive officer. The committee, made up of several outside board members and Richard Sullivan, chairman and CEO of Applied Cellular, will work with an independent top-tier executive...
Some U.S. GSM and TDMA operators are irked at Qualcomm Inc. and its lobbying efforts within the U.S. government to frame the third-generation issue as a trade issue with Europe.They say that while Qualcomm is urging the State Department to take action against Europe...
The success of the personal communications services industry has astounded industry analysts, PCS company executives and cellular carriers alike.The PCS industry is about two years old and already has penetrated the market, driven down prices and earned high revenues faster than anyone had expected."It's...
COMSTREAMJohn F. Hodgson joined ComStream Corp. as vice president of human resources. Before ComStream, Hodgson held the same position with NextWave Telecom, San Diego, and prior to that with General Communications Inc., Anchorage, Alaska. He also has been the director of human resources for...
The personal communications services industry emerged almost unscathed in its quest for automatic roaming agreements with analog cellular carriers.Last year's lawsuit, which subsequently was dropped, brought by AT&T Wireless Services Inc. against Southwestco Wireless L.P. over in-market roaming, was thought to be a clash...
PALO ALTO, Calif.-BellSouth Cellular Corp. selected Corsair Communications Inc.'s FraudWatch Pro system to prevent fraud in its North and South American markets, said Corsair.The first installation of the product, at BellSouth headquarters in Atlanta, is scheduled to be done during the third quarter."We needed...
NEW YORK-A Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association group is developing recommendations for handset manufacturers that would reduce fraud potential and facilitate over-the-air customer activations for non-Global System for Mobile Communications carriers.The CTIA Fraud Technology Assessment Group, charged with evaluating and recommending new fraud-prevention measures, has...
WASHINGTON-A proposal from Western Wireless Corp. to receive universal-service support payments for providing telephone service to rural areas seems to have gotten a lukewarm response from the Federal Communications Commission.A basic piece of the Western Wireless proposal-to have the FCC re-evaluate support for rural...
Though most are based on some form of wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology, the proposals submitted to the International Telecommunication Union last month suggest a tough road toward achieving the family of systems concept to allow for global roaming, let alone convergence of...
The proposed combination of SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp. could create a big obstacle to the implementation of calling-party-pays service in the United States.Speaking last month at a luncheon sponsored by Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp., Sam Ginn, chairman and chief executive...
WASHINGTON-BellSouth Corp. told the Federal Communications Commission last week that since a majority of personal communications services customers in Louisiana said they use their PCS phone to make or receive calls at home, the company should be allowed to offer long distance in Louisiana.The...
Formed to take advantage of the current round of consolidation in the paging industry, a fairly new company announced its first purchase-the paging assets and operations of Bell Atlantic Corp.The New Jersey-based company has not yet come up with a name under which it...
While the majority of wireless carriers are moving toward outsourcing their handset distribution needs, Powertel Inc. is moving in the opposite direction.The West Point, Ga.-based personal communications services company recently ended its relationship with Brightpoint Inc., a distribution and value-added logistics services provider, and...
