Communication Solutions Inc. awarded Conductus Inc. a subcontract, valued at about $1 million, to build a multichannel wireless receiver front-end enhanced by superconductors. The Baltimore-based company plans to integrate the front end into a high-performance system earmarked for a number of government communications applications,...
Though the wireless industry remains an employee-driven market, signs indicate the intense demand for employees domestically may be slowing as companies are becoming cost sensitive under intense competition and merger-and-acquisition activity increases.Two years ago, when new personal communications services operators were building their armies...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association is taking the lead on implementing wireless number portability at the same time it waits for the Federal Communications Commission to rule on its request that the wireless number portability rules be delayed or eliminated early next century.Earlier this...
Metrocall Inc. announced a two-year interactive marketing agreement with America Online, by far the country's largest Internet online service with more than 12 million members.Under the terms of the agreement, AOL will establish links to Metrocall's Web site throughout the AOL service area and...
With personal communications services carriers reporting average monthly churn levels about twice as high as cellular carriers, bad debt increasingly is being blamed for PCS churn problems.Some PCS carriers are reporting average monthly churn levels of around 4 percent, while cellular carriers are averaging...
WARWICK, R.I.-Cellular One of Rhode Island and Bristol County, Mass., launched its digital wireless network and is offering calling plans that provide for free long-distance wireless calls throughout North America, said the company.The service also includes a rollover-minute calling plan, which allows customers to...
EL DORADO HILLS, Calif.-International Billing Services' electronic billing solution will be offered to the entire client base of Cincinnati Bell Information Services, which provides billing and customer-support solutions to the communications industry, the companies said.According to the multiyear agreement, CBIS customers will have the...
Metapath Software Corp. today introduced its Cerve Provisioning Manager 2.0, which will be commercially available during the fourth quarter.The Cerve product is a real-time provisioning platform designed to decrease carriers' time-to-market for new products and services and reduce operating costs. The product acts as...
ATLANTA-LHS Group Inc. announced it won a multi-million-dollar contract from Portuguese telecom consortium Optimus to provide its billing and customer-care solution called BSCS, or Business Support and Control System.Optimus, formerly known as Main Road, is the new third mobile network operator in Portugal, and...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden-L.M. Ericsson announced it won a $45 million order to expand the digital Advanced Mobile Phone Service network operated by Telefonica Comunicaciones Personales in central and southern Argentina.This is TCP's largest expansion order since the original network was purchased in 1995, said Ericsson....
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...
NEW YORK-As the telecommunications marketplace expands, billing and customer-care companies are ramping up efforts to carve out niches and compete against each other for dominance."Fueled by changes in customer expectations, new technology and deregulation, the emergence of this group of companies as a force...
PALO ALTO, Calif.-BT Mobile, a paging service provider based in Leeds, United Kingdom, awarded Corsair Communications Inc. a three-year contract valued at nearly $5 million to provide it with an integrated customer-care, inventory-management and billing solution.Corsair said it will replace BT Mobile's customer-care and...
WASHINGTON-The American novelist Edith Wharton once noted the only thing that distinguishes vice from virtue is point of view. Some might say her comment is an apt description of the current debate about whether the U.S. wireless market should adopt Calling Party Pays (CPP)...
U.S. utility companies could become significant players in the wireless telecommunications industry in coming years if they can figure out the right strategy to enter the business.Analysts indicate utilities seriously are evaluating opportunities to branch out into the telecommunications arena in light of deregulation...
Lucent Technologies Inc. added several new applications to its Cooperative Innovations alliance program, which is meant to supplement Lucent-developed and -branded solutions.Lucent tests applications marketed through Cooperative Innovations for compatibility with its wireless infrastructure. Testing takes place at the company's Wireless Innovation Lab in...
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J.-Axiom Inc. announced it has signed a contract with Telikom Papua New Guinea for a Sterling Solution billing data mediation system for about $3 million."This sale represents an important new customer and validates Axiom's continued initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region, despite the...
NEW YORK-Silvio Scaglia, chief executive officer of Omnitel Pronto Italia S.p.A., called it the "What we are doing today that others will do tomorrow" plan.The Italian carrier has executed a series of steps to further its goal of making its mobile telecommunications services a...
ATLANTA-LHS Group Inc. said it completed its acquisition of Marlborough, Mass.-based InfoCellular Inc.The acquisition provides LHS with a point-of-sale software solution, which expands its global billing and customer-care product offering.The transaction included all InfoCellular assets for a purchase price of about $8.4 million in...
Moves made by the top 10 paging carriers in the last six months dramatically illustrate how paging carriers are changing to remain in the game.The sun has set on the age of the cheap-beep model and is rising on a new era of value-added...
NEW YORK-Wireless telephony providers are hemorrhaging revenues from organized activity by criminals drawn to the low risk and easy money of subscription fraud.Thieves are exploiting a particularly lucrative window of opportunity right now, one that is likely to remain open for a few years....
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-Kenan Systems Corp. announced Paging Network Inc. selected its Arbor/Mobile billing platform to support the paging carrier's current and future billing services.PageNet has begun a major reorganization of its billing and other processes, looking to consolidate several functions into nationwide "Centers for Excellence,"...
Puerto RicoA consortium led by GTE Corp. signed a definitive pact to purchase for $375 million a controlling interest of 50 percent plus one share in the Puerto Rico Telephone Co. from the government there. GTE made the initial purchase and plans to sell...
