WASHINGTON-Independent Counsel Ralph Lancaster last week cleared Labor Secretary Alexis Herman of using her political clout and soliciting illegal campaign contributions as a former White House aide to help Mobile Communications Satellite Corp. win a mobile satellite license from the Federal Communications Commission in...
Big business spends billions of dollars on infrastructure. No matter whether the business is an airline or a telecommunications company, the economic theory is the same. To be able to provide good service to the public over a wide geographic area requires a huge...
The flurry of consolidation in the wireless industry leads the industry observer to believe a nationwide presence is a necessity to compete in this market going forward.AT&T Wireless Services Inc. raised the bar in 1998 offering its nationwide plan, the Digital One Rate plan....
NEW YORK-The ongoing fight for dominance of the U.S. wireless market flared up once again last week as Bell Atlantic Corp. and Vodafone AirTouch plc said they will commence this year an initial public offering of Verizon Wireless, the joint venture that combines the...
SAN FRANCISCO-Even as the tech-heavy Nasdaq stock market was spinning out of control and dragging down telecom shares last week, wireless network and marketing managers here were brimming with optimism about a industry whose biggest challenge is keeping up with fast-paced growth and all...
SAN FRANCISCO-RateXchange, San Francisco, is calling its new CustomAuctions service, announced March 27, "the first private sector initiative to develop a secondary market for wireless spectrum."The company said its initiative is in line with Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard's recent remarks articulating the...
WASHINGTON-As Congress mulls tax breaks and legislative changes to bring advanced telecommunications to rural Americans who lawmakers fear will be left behind in the Information Age, a new report finds many rural telcos are financially strong enough to borrow from commercial sources other than...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission's decision to delay until June 7 the auction of broadcast spectrum has raised questions about the agency's motives and intentions.The spectrum, freed up as a result of TV broadcasters transition from analog to digital technology, is known as 60-69 because...
One press article after another has asserted that the European Union's single standards regime for wireless services has given Europe an enormous "lead" over the United States. These stories, however, do not present a complete picture regarding the global leadership of the U.S. wireless...
After years of anticipation fueled by talk of a new technology still shrouded in secrecy, AT&T Wireless Services Inc. announced last week it is offering commercial digital wireless broadband service to residential customers in Fort Worth, Texas.The new service, long known under the guise...
SAN FRANCISCO-More than 1,600 people converged on San Francisco last week to confirm what most attendees already knew-wireless broadband is going to be big.The Second Annual Broadband World Wireless Forum 2000, produced by Shorecliff Communications Inc., brought together broadband wireless service providers, equipment manufacturers,...
FAIRFAX, Va.-Fixed wireless is the best method for providing last-mile broadband while fiber is best for long haul, an executive of a fixed-wireless company told the Global Internet Summit last week."WinStar's conviction is that fixed wireless is the most cost effective to provide last-mile...
NEW YORK-The Financial Accounting Standards Board, Norwalk, Conn., met March 7 to begin consideration of approximately 250 formal comments about its controversial proposal to eliminate accounting for mergers as pooling of interests.The pooling of interests method records the value of a merger as the...
Broadband. It is a familiar term being tossed around the wireless industry like a hot potato, but its relatively new status is making its definition, applications and implications elusive to many.At the most basic level, wireless broadband-also known as fixed wireless, Broadband Wireless Local...
British Telecom plc unveiled its mobile Internet strategy last week, setting up a new unit to offer global mobile Internet services by extending its existing Genie Internet services to Wireless Application Protocol-enabled phones.BT said it will invest $250 million in WAP technology and form...
WASHINGTON-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan last week said that despite benefits of increased productivity, stepped-up capital spending and unprecedented wealth creation, the high tech-driven New Economy may be growing too fast for its own good."Until market forces, assisted by a vigilant Federal Reserve, effect...
SAN DIEGO-Ryder System Inc., a provider of logistics and transportation solutions, selected Qualcomm Inc. as its primary and preferred wireless mobile communications and on-board computer provider and has agreed to purchase Qualcomm's OmniTRACS fleet tracking system for its clients' and its own vehicles.Ryder and...
NEW YORK-Rural carriers, many of which began as landline providers, already have experienced a long learning curve in service bundling-a current hot topic in the telecommunications industry.No doubt they face challenges posed by downward pressures on roaming revenues and increased competition in their territories....
SYDNEY, Australia-Telstra, Australia's largest telecom provider, announced it will cut 10,000 jobs over the next two years including up to 220 senior management positions as part of a restructuring. The reductions are part of a program to reduce expenses by about $398.8 million per...
NEW|ORLEANS-GTE Telecommunications Services Inc. said it has purchased the Jambala Mobility Gateway from L.M. Ericsson to complement its Interim Standard-41 to Global System for Mobile communications message conversion, which is part of GTE TSI's GlobalRoam solution.With this acquisition, GTE TSI now provides one-stop shopping...
NEW ORLEANS-A standoff over 1XRTT technology enhancements began to brew at last week's Wireless 2000 show, as Motorola Inc. challenged the business case of Qualcomm's proprietary High Data Rate technology, introducing its own 1X enhancement for cdmaOne carriers to consider.Qualcomm has aggressively marketed HDR...
ORLANDO, Fla.-Triton Network Systems Inc., a provider of broadband fixed-wireless network products, entered into an agreement with IBM Corp. to purchase the assets and hire approximately 50 employees associated with IBM's broadband modem product line in exchange for 5.5 million shares of its series...
PHOENIX, United States-Some observers have compared the broadband wireless industry to a hockey game: lots of skating around, many dramatic clashes, but not much scoring.Still, like a hockey game, broadband wireless attracts plenty of fans. Interest is downright rabid among telecom carriers, equipment vendors and...
HANNOVER, Germany-After a year of industry enthusiasm and the wild market forecasts that have surrounded the short-range wireless technology Bluetooth, the silicon-chip developers used the giant CeBIT 2000 exhibition to unveil products that appear to provide the first step on the path toward implementation.Key...
