WASHINGTON-Members of the House Commerce Committee last month urged the Federal Communications Commission to delay or eliminate the requirement that commercial mobile radio service providers implement local number portability (LNP) next year.The letter signed by 22 members supports a petition filed late last year...
LAS VEGAS-General Magic Inc. said it plans to begin commercially offering July 30 its integrated voice and data virtual assistant network service via local, regional and national value-added resellers.The service, previously code-named Serengeti, is officially renamed Portico. The Portico brand name now will appear...
WASHINGTON-GTE Corp. filed a private antitrust lawsuit at a U.S. federal district court here last week in an attempt to block the planned $38 billion merger of WorldCom Inc. and MCI Communications Corp.The lawsuit alleges the merger would allow the combined company to monopolize...
Trying to compete with satellite-industry giants, Celsat America Inc., a small, domestic player in the mobile satellite services arena, filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission opposing the allocation of any new spectrum to applicants that already have licenses."According to the FCC public notice,...
DALLAS-"It's an exciting time in the industry. It's a time of growth and rebirth."So said Konstantin Zsigo, president of Zsigo Wireless Data Inc., at the opening session of Wireless Developer '98, formerly known as CelluComm Expo, last week in Dallas.This evangelism is nothing new...
Conductus Inc. announced two agreements providing up to $4.5 million in financing to support the commercialization of its new ClearSite wireless products next year. Conductus also said it concluded the first phase of a field trial of the ClearSite superconductive receiver subsystem with RadioFone,...
ALEXANDRIA, Va.-The 1998 Eugene C. Bowler award was presented to David Siddall, legal adviser to Federal Communications Commissioner Susan Ness at the Personal Communications Industry Association's Eighth Annual Eugene C. Bowler Dinner & Awards Presentation last week.House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley Jr. (R-Va.)...
Midway through this year's legislative session, many states have considered and passed bills to provide a cost-recovery mechanism for wireless carriers deploying enhanced 911 systems.Phase I of the Federal Communications Commission's E911 mandate requires carriers to be able to transmit to emergency dispatchers the...
Mobile data applications to date have been fairly industry-specific and complicated, something many in the data industry blame for its confinement to a limited vertical market.But mobile data network carriers Ardis and BellSouth Wireless Data Inc.-formerly RAM Mobile Data USA L.P.-believe two-way interactive text...
NEW YORK-The California State Board of Equalization decided April 30 to postpone voting until at least late June on a permanent extension of the state sales taxes to wireless devices sold in a bundle with services.The proposal would require retailers to pay sales, or...
BellSouth Cellular Corp. signed an agreement with PageMart Wireless Inc., which will allow the cellular carrier to add paging to a mix of bundled services it plans to offer.Under the agreement, BellSouth will offer paging service initially through its company-owned retail stores and kiosks....
ARGENTINAU.S.-based DSC Communications Corp. announced it signed an agreement with Movicom to deliver and deploy its CTC421 Intelligent Digital Trunk Optimizer for expanding the carrier's network capacity.BOLIVIASR Telecom Inc. of Canada has been awarded contracts valued at about US$12 million by Entel S.A. and...
A movement is slowly growing toward developing a wireless handset that can operate around the world, though few carriers seem to be taking interest at this point.The Modular Multifunction Information Transfer System Forum (MMITS), an industry group comprising the defense and commercial wireless sectors...
Personal communications services carrier BellSouth Mobility DCS said it is offering an enhanced voice-mail service called RapidReply to customers in the Carolinas, eastern Tennessee and coastal Georgia.With the new service, customers do not have to exit voice mail or dial a caller's telephone number...
NEW YORK-Triton PCS Inc., a startup Time Division Multiple Access carrier based in Malvern, Pa., was expected to sell privately late last week its first debt issue, which comprises $300 million in senior subordinated discount notes due 2008.AT&T Wireless Services Inc. contributed 20 megahertz...
Telephone and Data Systems Inc. said start-up costs associated with its personal communications services business, Aerial Communications Inc., reduced cash flow and operating income during the first quarter, while United States Cellular, TDS' cellular business, continued to be the company's work horse.TDS reported a...
As the popularity and penetration of wireless communications spreads throughout North America, wireless carriers increasingly will use mass-market retail outlets and their own direct channels to distribute handsets and services. Wireless consumers might put a cellular phone on their shopping list along with a...
NEW YORK-In late March, the logjam finally broke on the long-stalled liberalization of the Brazilian telecommunications market through the introduction of second wireless carriers.One forecast predicted the number of cellular telephone customers in Brazil could increase during the next five years to 23 million...
The annual growth rate of worldwide subscribers using Time Division Multiple Access technology is expected to increase more than 100 percent this year, according to figures released last week by the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium.UWCC estimates there were 9.2 million TDMA subscribers worldwide last...
A new niche segment of the wireless industry-build-to-suit-is attracting a lot of attention, both from carriers and Wall Street.The idea behind the build-to-suit concept is to shift all aspects of tower siting-including zoning, construction and maintenance-to a third party. Carriers, increasingly burdened with competitive...
This year's El Nino phenomenon has brought unseasonably mild weather to some parts of the nation while slamming others with sudden bizarre weather, including flooding in California, ice storms in the Northeast and tornadoes in the South.The strange weather has effected some wireless systems....
ATLANTA-BellSouth Corp. announced it has completed the acquisition of RAM Broadcasting Corp., and in doing so has assumed full operational control of Woodbridge, N.J.-based RAM Mobile Data USA Ltd., which it renamed BellSouth Wireless Data.BellSouth Wireless Data will fall under control of BellSouth's subsidiary,...
WASHINGTON-Real competition will not succeed in the marketplace until "realistic rates" can be reached and subsidies cut back or restructured-including those earmarked for universal service, said three Wall Street analysts who testified before a Senate subcommittee last Wednesday.Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the...
