NEW YORK-Several billing and customer-care providers have announced new products in recent weeks, among them, American Management Systems Inc., International Telecommunications Data Systems Inc., Kenan Systems Corp. and Subscriber Computing Inc.AMSTapestry from AMS, Fairfax, Va., is the company's next-generation platform, which uses object-oriented, client/server...
To the Editor: Recent letters submitted by RCR readers have questioned MobileMedia's long-term prospects at a time when the company is actually well on its way to emerging from Chapter 11 as a stronger, healthier company.Chapter 11 is intended to provide companies with the ability...
WASHINGTON-Four Senate telecom lawmakers plan to introduce universal service legislation this week aimed at preventing mandated Internet links for schools, libraries and rural health-care facilities from draining telephone service subsidies for poor and high-cost rural subscribers.The bipartisan draft, authored by Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska),...
NEW YORK-Look no further than North American borders for the biggest near-term opportunities to provide billing and customer care systems.In recent years, the focus of procurement contract competition has been on supplying operations support systems, which include billing and customer care, to the green...
BearCom Inc. acquired Fidelcomm Service Co., a two-way radio equipment dealer serving the greater Los Angeles area, said BearCom. The dealership, which has been in business since 1988, will assume the BearCom name.Brightpoint Inc. agreed to sell Merrill Lynch & Co. $335 million aggregate...
WASHINGTON-Area-code splits are unnecessary at this time, and the Federal Communications Commission needs to take command of state-controlled phone number allocations that need to move away from the traditional 10,000-number blocks.The rise in fax machines, pagers and cellular phones cannot be blamed for what...
Ericsson forms office mobility unitATLANTA-Ericsson Inc. announced the formation of the Wireless Services unit in response to the increasing need for wireless communications in the workplace.Ericsson said the new unit will provide a wireless office solution based on the Interim Standard-136 Time Division Multiple...
Motorola Inc. announced it has reached an agreement with Latin American paging provider Alfa-Bip of Mexico to provide infrastructure for a nationwide expansion of its paging services. Under the terms of the agreement, Alfa-Bip agreed to buy Motorola's Nucleus one-way paging transmitters. Alfa-Bip is...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association has asked the Federal Communications Commission to address three regulatory issues surrounding calling party pays, calling on the agency to "step up and deal with the anti-consumer problems that force each subscriber to see every cellular call as a...
Motorola Inc.'s Cellular Infrastructure Group is struggling to keep PrimeCo Personal Communications L.P. from giving future contracts to another vendor for more personal communications services equipment.PrimeCo reportedly is dissatisfied with the performance of Motorola's Code Division Multiple Access equipment currently installed, but contrary to...
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association has filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to move forward with a rulemaking on calling party pays service. While CPP service has been implemented with great success throughout much of the rest of the...
DENVER, United States-Market strategy has taken on a new meaning for wireless carriers in the Asia-Pacific, which are picking themselves up, dusting themselves off and looking around to see if the region's economic storm has left them shipwrecked or simply thrown off course a...
ATLANTA, United States-The CDMA Development Group (CDG) said it formed cdmaConnect, a program providing an end-to-end Interim Standard-41 roaming solution to CDG-member operators outside North America and new personal communications services (PCS) operators in the United States.Developed in conjunction with GTE Telecommunications Services Inc....
BALTIMORE, United States-The World Health Organization (WHO) is assessing the feasibility of conducting a multi-nation study to determine the connection, if any, between mobile-phone use and cancers in the brain, head and neck.Countries collaborating on the research initiative include Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Israel,...
Consumers in Cincinnati for the first time will be able to purchase local, long-distance, personal communications, Internet and satellite TV service from one provider and receive their charges on one bill. The service begins May 1.Cincinnati Bell Wireless, the subsidiary of local phone provider...
WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commission member Susan Ness said last week's ruling on the marketing of customer information by paging, cellular and telephone companies will benefit Baby Bells and their subsidiaries more than others.The agency's ruling restricts carriers from using customer data from one telecom service...
Like a tsunami we don't see until it's too late, number portability is heading toward the wireless industry, and few companies seem prepared for the impending storm.While phones, technology and communication vehicles have changed dramatically through the years, one constant in the telecommunications industry...
MELVILLE, N.Y.-Interantenna-AMC, based in Moscow, has selected and installed the In-Touch II paging billing and management system from In-Touch Management Systems Inc., said the company.The installation, In-Touch's first in Russia, includes the company's Operator Dispatch System, which will help reduce Interantenna's equipment and operating...
Envision an all digital baseball stadium that allows its patrons to use their digital wireless phones to determine which parking lots are full, to order food and have it delivered to their seats or download player statistics.That is only one vision Kailas J. Rao,...
To the editor: I just read your editorial about bundling and discounting, and, as a consumer, I could not agree more. I also subscribe to your adage to never, never pay retail. I wish I could avoid it where my wired and wireless services apply.On...
It is much more expensive to recapture a wireless customer who has churned than it is to keep a customer on your network, say some customer service experts. Providing good customer service not only keeps customers happy, but it also is becoming a differentiator...
WASHINGTON-A year-end survey conducted by the Telecommunications Resellers Association revealed that 90 percent of respondents who sought to resell personal communications services were barred from doing so by carriers, and that number rose to 100 percent for those respondents who want to resell specialized...
Paging Network Inc. last week disclosed a plan to dramatically restructure its U.S. operations, the most notable aspect of which includes a 30-percent reduction in work force during the next nine to 15 months.This reduction will affect about 1,800 employees in positions such as...
Two developers of handset-based prepaid technology are headed to court over alleged patent and trademark infringement.Telemac Corp. has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., against Topp Telecom Inc. of Miami, charging the company with patent and trademark infringement and unfair...
