HOLTSVILLE, N.Y.-Symbol Technologies Inc., which designs, manufactures and installs wireless local area network systems, bar-code systems and short-range wireless-connectivity products, today announced its support for and full participation in the development of the Bluetooth specification. Symbol is a member of the Bluetooth Special Interest...
News that Globalstar L.L.P. lost 12 satellites late last week in a failed rocket launch left mobile satellite service investors uneasy. An announcement from Iridium L.L.C. indicating it plans to postpone commercial service because of technical delays didn't help investors' confidence either.The glitches are...
WASHINGTON-Wireless carriers this week will be writing checks-big checks-to the Federal Communications Commission to pay statutorily required regulatory fees.Regulatory fees finance approximately 80 percent of the FCC's operating expenses. These fees, set each year by Congress, have been increasing steadily to the dismay of...
TORONTO-Rogers Cantel Inc. said it has extended its Pay As You Go paging and cellular service to customers in Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan."This product has opened up the wireless marketplace to new and different market segments such as seniors, teens and those individuals who...
NEW YORK-Take heed wireless telecommunications carriers! The chickens have come home to roost, and royalties are due for the systems that run up to 90 percent of all prepaid telecommunications services in the United States.After a seven-year review, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...
GLOBECOM SYSTEMSGlobecomm Systems Inc. announced commercial availability of its Systems Explorer II Portable Satphone, a satellite phone system that uses Integrated Services Digital Network technology. Explorer II is made in the United States and weighs 32 pounds. The system can be configured from the...
Qualcomm to spinoff LeapSAN DIEGO-Qualcomm Inc. announced a record date of Sept. 11 for the proposed spinoff of Leap Wireless International Inc.The board declared a one-share dividend of Leap for every four outstanding shares of Qualcomm. The distribution of Leap is expected to occur...
Iridium L.L.C. announced it will delay its initial Sept. 23 service launch date to Nov. 1, citing the need to "improve operational stability of the network," according to Ed Staiano, the company's vice chairman and chief executive officer.In a briefing with reporters last week,...
Sorry Microsoft Corp., but analyst firm Strategy Analytics predicts the handheld device market in the future will not be dominated by any single standard."Microsoft will not dominate this category as it has with PCs," Matthew Checkley, associate consultant with the firm, said in a...
Lucent Technologies Inc. announced an intelligent network messaging solution designed to bring messaging mainstream, said the company.The solution makes use of information in network databases to enable a service provider to deliver advanced messaging services to its entire subscriber base, said Lucent."This will make...
Reply to Kennard: Since when has the FCC been for the public?To the Editor: I read Chairman (William) Kennard's response in your Aug. 24, 1998, issue to a previous article about the direction Sen. (John) McCain appears to be taking with the FCC and can...
While the short-term forecast for wireless operators in financially troubled parts of the world could be turbulent, carriers remain optimistic the wireless industry will weather the current financial crisis without many lasting repercussions.Stock markets around the globe-in Europe, Japan, Latin America and the United...
NEW YORK-Australia's Optus Communications, a multiservice carrier, announced fiscal year-end results Aug. 31 that showed significant declines in operating losses compared with the prior year.Optus closed out Fiscal 1998, ended June 30, with 1.7 million wireless telephony customers, of which 158,000 were net new...
NEW YORK-Northern Telecom Ltd., Toronto, completed its $7 billion-plus acquisition of Bay Networks, Santa Clara, Calif.Nortel is the third-largest wireless infrastructure supplier in the world. Wireless telecommunications remains the fastest-growing of Nortel's five independent business units, each of which currently brings in about $4...
Sweden-based L.M. Ericsson said it has found no reason to believe the current W-CDMA 3G standard chosen by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute would infringe on any valid intellectual property rights claimed by Qualcomm Inc.In fact, CEO Sven-Christer Nilsson's comments to the Japanese press...
U.S. stock markets, like most markets around the world, last week experienced a roller-coaster ride that left many companies with no choice but to hold on and hope for the best.Wireless stocks were not immune to the sudden drop Monday brought on by the...
Chances are slim to none that U.S. mobile phone operators will agree on one standard for the next generation of mobile phone services.Already fragmented with three different digital standards-cdmaOne, TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile communications)-the United States is...
Wireless carriers in the United States have been focusing a great deal of attention on a government mandate concerning emergency calls made from wireless phones.The United States has in place a three-digit phone number-911-that citizens can call to be connected with police, fire and...
BEIJING-China Telecom announced it signed up its 20 millionth mobile phone customer, a police officer named Zhang Qinghua in the scenic city of Hangzhou, at precisely 8: 45 a.m. on 18 August. In the first half of the year, China Telecom signed up 5.45 million...
The first GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) network in Zambia is scheduled to be commercial at the end of October. At its launch, Zambia will join more than 20 African countries that have GSM networks.The new operator, Zamcell, is a joint venture of...
SINGAPORE-Given that Singapore's paging market is close to saturation with a 43-percent penetration rate, it comes as no surprise that paging operators in the market constantly are on the lookout for innovative ways to serve up new offerings to their customers. The latest dish...
TOKYO-The Japanese government is funding research for a 1 trillion yen (US$6.85 billion) Skynet project, scheduled to be ready for commercial launch in 2002, that would use up to 200 airships floating in the stratosphere as base stations for cellular networks.While the Iridium mobile...
Wireless operators, especially those in emerging markets, will have to operate leaner to survive the second stage of a financial crisis that originated in Asia a year ago, spread to Russia more recently-and within a matter of days fanned out like wildfire to markets...
DUBLIN, Ireland-The number of new phone manufacturers and the introduction of GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) handset design packages have lead to a proliferation of new handsets. However, there already have been casualties, and it seems inevitable that other manufacturers will be forced...
