TOKYO-Yoshiaki Shioda, senior manager for NEC, recently visited Kirgiz, a republic south of the Commonwealth of Independent States, to help local people get connected with each other.In Kirgiz, only one out of every 100 people have access to a telephone, and locals occasionally have...
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-The trunked radio industry in South Africa is about to experience a revolutionary change with the introduction of new technologies and standards. An entirely new market is being unlocked, and old markets are about to be reshuffled to allow for a more...
MELBOURNE, Australia-A steady growth in demand for trunked land mobile services (TLMS) has forced the Australian Communications Authority to auction the last two blocks of five channels in Melbourne."We've come to a situation where demand for trunked land mobile spectrum has exceeded supply," said...
CHESTERFIELD, Mo.-A new study conducted by Datacomm Research Co. and Techvest International found Internet-based e-commerce will skyrocket, but only companies that develop and implement entirely new business models will succeed."Portals to Profit: E-Commerce Business Models and Enabling Technologies," also said, among other things, wireless technology...
Wireless broadband service has finally received attention from the likes of big telecom players Sprint Corp. and MCI WorldCom Inc. The race is on to access the local market and cheaply bypass connection to regional Bell operating companies.Sprint announced last week plans to purchase...
WASHINGTON-Two high-ranking House Science Committee Democrats have asked Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to investigate allegations of misconduct by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in connection with the licensing of a potentially revolutionary wireless technology called micropower impulse radar.A House Science Committee staff report questions...
WASHINGTON-House Commerce appropriations subcommittee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) last week sternly questioned the Federal Communications Commission's consideration of cost as a factor in arbitrating a long-running dispute between the Justice Department and telecom industry over setting technical standards associated with the digital wiretap law.Earlier...
Call Oliver Stone. The military-industrial complex is alive and well!Seems telecom execs want to be right in the thick of things at the 50th anniversary celebration of NATO, April 23-25, here.The cost of admission: a cool $250,000. That, according to a Washington Post report, is...
Don Buzzelli, president and chief executive officer of MessageLink Inc., Duluth, Ga., is looking to make a play in the paging industry's current consolidation stage.His plan is fairly simple-buy up a bunch of small but profitable paging carriers in lower-tier markets, unify them with...
Motorola Inc.'s Worldwide Information Network Services group confirmed the Defense Information Systems Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense awarded it a three-year contract valued at up to $219 million for the purchase of Iridium phones, pagers and airtime.Under the contract, Motorola will provide...
WASHINGTON-The wireless industry gained almost 14 million new subscribers by the end of 1998-a growth rate of nearly 25 percent in one year, said the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association last week. "To put this in context, it took the industry nine-and-a-half years to gain...
PageMart Wireless Inc. expanded its resale and network integration effort last week, announcing a two-stage strategic relationship with AirTouch Communications Inc.'s paging division, similar to an agreement announced with Metrocall Inc. last November.Under the first phase of the agreement, AirTouch will begin reselling PageMart's...
San Diego-based Ensemble Communications Inc. is approaching worldwide broadband wireless access markets with a point-to-multipoint wireless system that has three key technology layers with one thing in common-they can be adapted.The company, with roots stretching back more than 30 years to Linkabit, a consulting...
Widespread consolidation among telecommunications carriers has concentrated buying power into fewer and fewer hands, with vendors experiencing many of the side effects.In the last year alone, at least half of the carriers on RCR's 1998 Top 20 cellular carriers' list have been acquired by...
The announcement last week that Comcast Corp. and MediaOne Group signed an agreement to merge in a $60 billion deal driven by broadband cable networks could affect the wireless industry halfway around the world.MediaOne's international wireless interests, which cover 4.3 million customers primarily in...
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, N.J.-International Wireless Technologies L.L.C. has developed a single-chip solution that permits wireless device manufacturers to use one platform for multiple mobile and fixed voice and data standards.By mid-year, IWT said it expects to beta test with two equipment manufacturers its patent pending...
Early cellular carriers did it. Early paging carriers did it. Mobile data carriers are doing it now, and according to analyst Tim O'Neil of SoundView Technology Group Inc., Iridium L.L.C. should do it as well.That is-subsidize handsets to promote network usage. It's a standard...
SAO PAULO, Brazil-Iridium Brasil reports it has 1,000 subscribers and that next month it will reduce the cost of its Motorola satellite handset to make the service more attractive to potential subscribers, said Pedro Schvinger, sales manager for Iridium's Brazilian operation, at the Telexpo...
CAMARILLO, Calif.-Following a recently announced strategic shift in senior management with the appointment of Kirk A. Waldron to president and chief executive officer, AML Communications Inc. downsized its 92-person staff to approximately 67."The reduced head count better supports our revenue flow and in conjunction...
WASHINGTON-A federal appeals court has rejected an assertion by the wireless industry it should not have to pay into individual state universal service funds. "Today's decision is a victory for consumers," said Lawrence Stickling, chief of the Common Carrier Bureau of the Federal...
The Federal Communications Commission could rule today on whether Leap Wireless International Inc. is qualified to own C-and F-block personal communications services licenses and bid in tomorrow's reauction of C-block spectrum.Leap's U.S. subsidiary, Cricket Communications, launched service last week in Chattanooga, Tenn., under a...
NEW YORK-The disappearing boundaries between the Internet and internal corporate computer networks pose a security threat that can undermine the business opportunities and efficiencies this new era of data communications offers.Half of the largest 563 American corporations using the Internet admitted to an attack...
OTTAWA, Ontario-Nortel Networks said it has developed and demonstrated an order of magnitude increase in the coverage radius of 800 MHz cdmaOne base stations to improve the economics of rural cellular service.In a series of tests conducted at its Wireless Solutions lab in Ottawa,...
NEW YORK-The promises of wireless voice communications as a landline replacement and of mobile data as a significant wireless revenue generator are moving closer to fulfillment but remain a few years away, chief technology officers of three carriers said at a recent seminar.On the...
