DALLAS-National Telemanagement Corp. teamed with Blackfoot Communications to offer NTC's SmartPay Wireless prepaid billing option to personal communications services customers in western Montana.Blackfoot, which is marketing NTC's service under the name SmartCall, said it introduced the program to allow customers to take advantage of...
Wireless carriers often face a dilemma in obtaining radio-frequency engineering services to implement and operate their networks. How do they find experienced RF engineers to design and build those networks, while at the same time controlling costs for recruiting or consulting? Carriers must find...
Representatives from BellSouth Corp., AirTouch Communications Inc. and GTE Corp. last week met with Federal Communications Commission representatives to discuss AirCell Inc.'s petition for a waiver of the airborne cellular rule.The discussion with representatives from the Commercial Wireless Division of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau...
WASHINGTON-A computer model by Western Wireless Corp. to determine the amount of subsidy each customer in a rural, high-cost or low-income area could help wireless carriers in the universal-service debate even if it is not used by the Federal Communications Commission.Western Wireless presented the...
TORONTO-Rogers Cantel Inc. announced it expanded and strengthened its distribution and presence across Canada through several transactions, as well as introduced international calling rates for its Cantel AT&T Pay As You Go service. The company also reduced the international calling rates for its regular...
Sprint PCS Chief Executive Officer Andrew Sukawaty declared his company now has the largest digital wireless footprint in the United States as the company ended 1998 having recorded $2.9 billion in capital expenditures.The nationwide personal communications services carrier added a record number 836,000 customers...
WASHINGTON-Support continued to mount last week for flexible rules that would give wireless carriers options for contributing to the federal Universal Service Fund and a fair chance at replacing monopoly landline telephone as subsidized providers of basic telephone service to low-income and rural subscribers.Universal-service...
As the end of the millennium approaches, it is worth pondering whether the recent bout of mergers and acquisitions are precedents to some colossal event of biblical proportions or merely defensive strategies of companies safeguarding themselves against falling commodity prices, uncertain technological change, increased...
LAFAYETTE, Calif.-Mobex Communications Inc. announced it acquired Indianapolis-based Communications Maintenance Inc. and Richmond, Va.-based Radio Communications for its Commercial Services sector, expanding the reach of its specialized mobile radio and two-way paging services to 19 markets in 13 states. The acquisitions cost $12 million.From...
Paging Network Inc. announced it is offering the Iridium World Page Service commercially in the United States as the country's exclusive paging carrier offering Iridium service.The paging portion of Iridium's 66 low-earth-orbit satellite system was activated in November, after which PageNet began beta testing...
NEW YORK-GTE Network Services, Irving, Texas, rolled out a program last month to move wireless directory assistance off the shoulder of the road and into the fast lane of the telecommunications revolution.GTE's Wireless Directory Assistance is intended to take the Catch 22 out of...
The third-generation technology debate is beginning to have a negative impact on the valuation of the world's largest wireless carrier, Japan's NTT Mobile Communications, which plans to become the first carrier in the world to deploy wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology.Dresdner Kleinwort Benson...
Earlier in this decade, the wireless industry began heating up over the immense promise of wireless local loop applications. Predictions of an explosion of worldwide WLL system installations through the end of the century were everywhere. Yet the number of lines actually deployed today...
TORONTO, Ontario, Canada-Rogers Cantel Inc. announced plans to introduce an all-in-one messaging service Feb. 1 in Canada, using the Inter@ctive 950 pager from Research in Motion Ltd.The Cantel AT&T Interactive Messaging service will allow users to send and respond to messages between the RIM...
WASHINGTON-The FBI and the Department of Justice last week clearly described the issue in the fight over technical capabilities to implement the digital wiretap act. "These arguments are not new. Instead they simply repeat and elaborate on the arguments that the commenters made in...
NEW YORK- AT&T Corp. attributed a big boost in its bottom line to its Wireless Services' Digital One Rate wireless pricing plan.AT&T said it earned $2 billion, or $1.12 per share, during the final three months of last year, up from $1.26 billion, or...
Finland-based Nokia Corp. continued to put pressure on its competitors with mobile phone sales that more than doubled for the fourth quarter, while its Swedish counterpart L.M. Ericsson saw its mobile phone sales fall 3 percent for the fourth quarter.At the end of 1997,...
Just as paging carriers look to two-way paging as a means of differentiation into the next millennium, so do paging manufacturers.In the past, a one-way pager was pretty much the same all over. Even the new lines of 1.5-way, or guaranteed messaging, pagers based...
Companies already are feeling the pinch from Brazil's falling currency, which, at RCR press time, had lost about 20 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar since Brazil's central bank first moved to devalue the real.BellSouth Corp. said it will record a foreign...
The union of AirTouch Communications Inc. and Vodafone plc could be a pinnacle event in the third-generation technology debate, industry experts say.The new company's economic decisions could weigh heavily on a sensitive and political debate over wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology. The two...
WASHINGTON-As parties in the never-ending fight over the implementation of the digital wiretap act prepare to file reply comments this week with the Federal Communications Commission, two federal lawsuits filed by the telecommunications industry against the Department of Justice and the FBI have been...
Motorola Inc. said it expects to meet Wall Street's earnings expectations for the first quarter, though it remains cautious in light of last week's currency devaluation in Brazil and the semiconductor industry's recovery.Analysts say Motorola is cutting operating costs more than expected, while its...
The reauction of C-block personal communications services spectrum is expected to be a dismal affair in March, and most small entrepreneurial businesses-which the auction was designed for-are likely to forgo bidding altogether.The Federal Communications Commission plans to reauction 134 15-megahertz and 208 30-megahertz C-block...
CUPERTINO, Calif.-DSP Communications Inc. announced its revenues for the 12-month period ended Dec. 31, were $131.1 million, an increase of 61 percent compared with the same period last year.The company recorded net income of $29.4 million, or 70 cents per share, compared with $21.4...
