WASHINGTON-With the House up for grabs this fall and a slew of high-tech bills pending before Congress, the high-tech lobby is flexing its muscle on Capitol Hill and shaping the debate on key issues important to the wireless industry such as China trade, high-tech...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission was criticized last week by specialized mobile radio operators and the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association regarding its proposed regulatory fee schedule for fiscal-year 2000.Congress, which sets the amount of regulatory fees to be collected each year, told the FCC to...
WASHINGTON-Dr. George Carlo, the controversial scientist who broke with the cellular industry last year after finding data possibly linking mobile phone use to health problems, will roll out a new research program this week combining epidemiology, laboratory research and passive surveillance of the nation's...
WASHINGTON-A proposal from the Federal Communications Commission to fund telephone service for Native Americans has come under fire from both inside the commission and the wireless trade associations.FCC Chairman William Kennard and FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani joined President Clinton last week in Shiprock, N.M.,...
WASHINGTON-The White House is expected shortly to release a belated report advocating the integration of wireless technologies into the nation's Emergency Alert System, a policy that industry, federal regulators and Congress have not aggressively pushed despite the fact that millions of mobile phones today...
WASHINGTON-Accenting its message with pastel-colored beanbag mobile phones, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association told Capitol Hill last week that competition is king.The trade association again delivered a set of nine stuffed phones-representing the number of potential wireless licensees in a market-to members of Congress,...
WASHINGTON-The wireless industry last week was rocked by two confounding controversies involving a California bill to promote hands-free devices as a precautionary measure against mobile phone radiation and a British consumer magazine's claim that such gadgets cause a three-fold increase in electromagnetic emissions to...
NEW YORK-During a special conference call March 30, a majority of federal Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce members approved a final report to deliver to Congress April 12.The commission's recommendations will include repeal of the 3-percent federal excise tax on telecommunications, originally levied in...
The Personal Communications Industry Association announced another initiative last week to turn the association around in the midst of dwindling membership and public-relations problems surrounding its annual trade show.PCIA said it is repositioning and renaming its annual conference and trade show PCIA GlobalXChange to...
The Personal Communications Industry Association stands at a huge crossroads, once again trying to reinvent itself. Though it may have had its best fiscal year in history in 1999, PCIA has structural problems. It's a painful time for the association, which recently eliminated 10...
LAS VEGAS-The Industrial Telecommunications Association, or a subsidiary thereof, "needs to do everything it can to participate" in the upcoming auction of the guard-band spectrum, said ITA President Mark E. Crosby.The Federal Communications Commission will auction off 104 licenses in the 700 MHz band...
WASHINGTON-With a little more than 18 months until the deadline for the implementation of enhanced 911 Phase II service, carriers are beginning to think about how they can make money from a government mandate that requires location technology.They are not alone. Vendors, too, are...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission is beginning an inquiry into how software-defined radios may change the world."You know that software-defined radios have the potential to bring science fiction to life," said FCC Commissioner Susan Ness.In a software-defined radio, functions that were formerly carried out solely...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission late Thursday said it would create "guard-band managers" as licensees for spectrum being set aside to protect public-safety users in the 700 MHz band.The FCC is creating two guard bands to protect public safety from interference. One license will be...
WASHINGTON-Both state and federal regulators received lots of advice last week on whether wireless carriers should be granted eligible telecommunications carrier status, a necessity if they want to receive universal-service support.Small rural telcos fear that subsidies they have come to rely on will go...
WASHINGTON-In new research not yet published, a prominent Motorola Inc.-sponsored scientist has found genetic damage from mobile-phone frequency radiation that may support similar findings by Wireless Technology Research L.L.C.After making the discovery last year, Dr. Joseph Roti Roti, a radiation biologist at Washington University...
WASHINGTON-The Personal Communications Industry Association said Thursday that it is eliminating 10 positions as it "recharges its organization to further advance wireless industry.""In 1999, PCIA had the best fiscal year in its history. To continue this success, we are setting a new strategic...
WASHINGTON-When wireless customers begin to really use their wireless phones to access the Internet, who will they use? An Internet service provider of their choice or will they be forced to use the mobile-phone company's ISP?The answer Chris Gent, chief executive officer of Vodafone...
Philadelphia, like many big American cities, has its share of thorny issues: crime, poverty, drugs, rotting schools and urban flight.But last Wednesday, one issue overshadowed them all in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The paper led, front-page banner headline and all, with a hearing last Tuesday by...
WASHINGTON-A new study failed to find an increase in cancer and other diseases among nearly 200,000 employees who worked at Motorola Inc. from 1976 to 1996.The study, published in the March issue of Epidemiology and underwritten by Motorola, was conducted by Robert Morgan, Michael...
NEW ORLEANS-Bidders in the upcoming 700 MHz auction should be able to negotiate with incumbent broadcasters to facilitate a quicker transition to digital TV and the faster rollout of wireless broadband, said William Kennard, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, in his CTIA 2000...
NEW ORLEANS-The outlook for adoption of rules for calling party pays is now seen as murky by many of those who attended last week's CTIA Wireless 2000 conference.Calling party pays is similar to long-distance toll calling where the person placing the call to a...
NEW ORLEANS-The federal spectrum czar believes that federal government spectrum users need to do a better job of encouraging innovation by private industry.Such communication could also lead to the federal government using its spectrum more efficiently, said Greg Rohde, assistant commerce secretary for telecommunications...
NEW ORLEANS-The Federal Communications Commission will decide by early April whether to restrict bidding in the scheduled re-auction of personal communications services C- and F-block licenses to small businesses-known as designated entities-and those who do not exceed the spectrum caps, top FCC staffers told...
