As any business owner stuck with cartons of obsolete business cards and letterhead can attest, "portability"-at least in terms of a phone number-can be a real headache. That's because changing service from one local phone carrier to another also involves the added hassle and...
Poland has opened a tender for a Digital Cellular System 1800 MHz license. Interested companies are expected to submit offers by mid-July.Sources in Poland report that Minister of Telecommunications Andrzej Zielinski expects the DCS 1800 personal communications services operator to start commercial services by...
BEACHWOOD, Ohio-Allen Telecom Inc. made an investment in Littleton, Mass.-based Windata Inc., which is developing a line of millimeter wave point-to-multipoint radio systems targeted to the competitive access provider market and local multipoint distribution systems.The investment will initially be in the form of subordinated...
Lodestar Towers Inc., a developer and manager of multi-use transmission sites, broke ground on its Mt. Harvard facility in Southern California.Lodestar said the facility is the nation's first multi-use facility equipped to provide turnkey transmitter plant facilities for digital television in the Southern California...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission has asked interested parties to comment on a dispute between Southwestern Bell Telephone and a handful of paging carriers regarding interconnection compensation between local exchange carriers and paging providers.The regional holding company, which operates in five states, listed the following...
DALLAS-InterVoice Inc. and Open Development Corp. reached an agreement to develop a platform for multivendor calling card and prepaid services.The Original Equipment Manufacturer agreement calls for the pair to develop an application programming interface between InterVoice's Network Services Platform 5000 and Open Development's openMedia...
SUNNYVALE, Calif.-American Phoenix Group Inc., soon to be renamed TAL Wireless Networks Inc., began a partnership research agreement with Advanced Lab for Trade Efficiency.The companies will incorporate TAL technologies into ALTE's electronic trading solutions. TAL's wireless network technology will be used as a communications...
TAMPA-GTE Telecommunications Services Inc. signed a contract to provide its Access Services clearinghouse system to PrimeCo Personal Communications L.P.GTE also will provide its RoamerXchange database management system to PrimeCo, which operates a Code Division Multiple Access personal communications services network.The Access Services system determines...
WASHINGTON-In a January 1993 article, a year-and-a-half before joining the Federal Communications Commission, then-attorney Rachelle Chong laid out what has turned out to be a model defense of cellular phone-cancer lawsuits.Chong, in a paper titled "Zap, Crackle, Pop" delivered at a conference in Asia,...
MCI Communications Corp. kicked off networkMCI Interactive Paging two-way service, using the AccessLink pager by Wireless Access Inc. and SkyTel Corp.'s ReFLEX 50 network.The complete service, with reply capability that ensures message delivery, is available in 16 markets. However, networkMCI Interactive Paging service is...
WASHINGTON-House telecommunications subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) last week proposed to fund digital wiretap implementation and Internet access for schools with $1.7 billion paid by wireless carriers and broadcasters for siting antennas on federal land during the next five years.But the measure, which Tauzin...
Belt-tightening, steady growth of one-way services and advances in two-way and voice paging are winning the paging sector renewed interest on Wall Street."I think there are people in the investment community beginning to kick the tires," stated Jeanine Oburchay, paging analyst at Bear Stearns...
WASHINGTON-Assistant FBI Director James Kallstrom accused Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association President Thomas Wheeler of making false and misleading statements to Congress about the agency's role in implementing the 1994 digital wiretap law, and suggested the wireless industry's lack of cooperation with law enforcement is...
A specialized mobile radio operator is making plans to offer a pager that operates at 220 MHz.Angell Communications Inc. announced Wings 220, a single line numeric pager that has the ability to operate within the limitations of 5 kilohertz channel spacing. A Hong Kong-based...
NEW YORK-Despite economies inherent in population density for the wireless telecommunications industry, rural cellular carriers are sitting pretty during the advent of personal communications services competition."If you take all of the C to F (block) winners, except maybe for some of the 10 megahertz...
WASHINGTON-Personal Communications Industry Association President Jay Kitchen blasted the Federal Communications Commission last week for ignoring congressional requests to reduce paging carrier contributions to the $2 billion annual universal service fund."The commission's actions ... are clearly inequitable and discriminatory for PCS (personal communications services)...
LIVINGSTON, N.J.-Personal communications services providers will face competition from established cellular phone companies, a trend that has already caused one PCS phone vendor to declare bankruptcy. The Insight Research Corp. in its new report predicts that trend will continue.PCS vendors will be burdened with...
Industry is working to meet the first phase of new wireless 911 requirements this year to make an Oct. 1 government deadline."Working out the exchange of information is the lion's share of work right now for implementing Phase I," said Eric Sorensen, product marketing...
DENVER-Personal communications services operator Western Wireless Corp. launched its VoiceStream service last Thursday in Denver, promising rates at least 20 percent lower than AT&T Wireless Services Inc.'s digital cellular rates.The company said it's Global System for Mobile communications network, supplied by Northern Telecom Inc.,...
The Federal Communications Commission filed a reply brief last week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit which is causing a review of the commission's wireless resale sunset decision.Cellnet Communications Inc., a Detroit cellular reseller, brought a lawsuit against the commission...
Mexico's Ministry of Communications and Transportation has designated spectrum in the 3.4 GHz to 3.7 GHz band for wireless local loop services, to be auctioned after the auction of personal communications services later this year, according to a report from the U.S. Embassy in...
Core performance helps Bell Atlantic with PrimeCo costsPHILADELPHIA-Bell Atlantic Corp.'s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Raymond Smith, said during the first quarter the company was able to absorb start-up costs for its new ventures such as PrimeCo Personal Communications L.P. and international wireless activities....
Do you think President Clinton and Congress are rethinking spectrum lease fees this week?The government's auction dream has ended. (Or turned into a nightmare, depending on how dramatic you want to get).The sale of 128 Wireless Communications Services licenses ended last week, racking up...
Billing and customer care are hailed by industry analysts, vendors and service providers as keys to success in a highly competitive wireless market. The recent focus in this area has been on making better software, training personnel, integrating systems and ultimately how these components...
