WASHINGTON-The cost of complying with law enforcement's demands for implementing the digital wiretap act is substantial, said the wireless industry last week.Responding to revenue estimates from five telecommunications manufacturers, the wireless industry told the Federal Communications Commission the costs of implementing the punch list...
WASHINGTON-The fallout of last week's Federal Communications Commission decision on solving the dead-zone problem saw the chairman's office denouncing the industry's response and consumers advocates split.As expected, the FCC did not mandate technical requirements for how wireless carriers address calls that fall in areas...
WASHINGTON-The consumer group fighting for specific E911 call-completion regulations vowed to take its case to court if the Federal Communications Commission adopts a technology-neutral rule this week.When it became apparent last week that the Wireless Consumers Alliance had lost its battle with the cellular...
WASHINGTON-The recent rash of violent events-highlighting both the life-saving capabilities and limitations of wireless technology-will serve as a powerful backdrop to this Wednesday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing on 911 wireless legislation.The committee will hear from Mark Wildey, an emergency 911 dispatch official from Littleton,...
WASHINGTON-At a time when all the rage on Wall Street is about the Internet, a CEO of a major wireless company contends wireless is bigger.Speaking at a luncheon sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, Sam Ginn, chairman and chief executive of AirTouch Communications Inc.,...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association blasted Rep. Charles Bass' (R-N.H.) pro-local antenna siting bill, saying it would undermine public safety and competition and potentially make local zoning authorities hostage to anti-tower activists."We urge Congress not to enact the Local Zoning Preservation Act of 1999...
HarrisHarris Corp. named its current Communications Sector President, E. Van Cullens, president and chief operating officer of the company, effective July 1. He will be responsible for overseeing the business operations for Harris' six divisions. Cullens joined Harris as communications sector president in 1997,...
LAS VEGAS-Rural Cellular Association leadership is preparing legislation, tentatively called the Rural Cellular Telecom Bill, to be introduced this summer in Congress that it says could relieve its members from regulations designed around and intended for large national carriers.The group plans to ask Congress...
MIAMI-The market opportunity for international roaming is clear, present and growing, but domestic carriers so far have been focused on tapping the large and more immediate potential posed by burgeoning data traffic at home."Many of the U.S. carriers I follow have not spent a...
DENVER, United States-Students at a high school used wireless technology as a lifeline to the world from within the confines of their suburban school while two gunmen terrorized students and faculty in a rampage that left 15 dead and 23 injured.Stories of Columbine High...
DENVER-Columbine High School students last week used wireless technology as a lifeline to the world from within the confines of their Littleton, Colo., school while two gunmen terrorized students and faculty in a rampage that left 15 dead and 23 injured.Stories of students managing...
WASHINGTON-The General Accounting Office, the investigative unit of Congress, is looking into the internal controls of how the Federal Communications Commission collects regulatory fees, the GAO confirmed last week.Regulatory fees are a separate assessment from filing fees. Regulatory fees go to offset congressional appropriations,...
WASHINGTON-Policy makers this week will receive the last of nine bean-bag wireless phone toys designed to remind them "Competition, innovation and safety symbolizes the wireless industry," according to a letter accompanying the toys.The bean-bag phones were one ingredient of a recipe of repetition the...
I have really tried to keep myself and my thoughts above the fray when it comes to the whole Y2K issue. It is difficult.At the beginning of the year, as the hype was making an early peak, I shook my head at some friends...
WASHINGTON-The Alliance for Telecommunications Solutions submitted a report last week to the Federal Communications Commission indicating no Year 2000-related problems were discovered in recent testing of the public switched telephone network.The interoperability testing included wireless to wireline call completion. These wireless/wireline tests were conducted...
NEW YORK-A panel of three federal judges heard arguments April 5 in an appeal of Federal Communications Commission siting and safety requirements for the placement of microwave cell sites for wireless telecommunications.The judges questioned attorneys for both sides critically and closely, allowing the clock...
While many of their counterparts in the high-flying build-to-suit industry are prospering, tower manufacturers are finding the road ahead may be a difficult one. Likewise, recent siting decisions do not bode well for carriers trying to build their networks.Late last month, Rohn Industries Inc....
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association will hold its first Lobby Day Wednesday, an event that will celebrate the success of the wireless industry and allow executives on Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers on concerns about taxes, antenna siting, digital wiretap implementation and other issues.The...
WASHINGTON-The wireless industry hopes to give the Federal Communications Commission a final report in June on how the deaf community can use text telephones (TTYs) with a digital wireless phone to call 911, said Todd Lantor, director of government relations for the Personal Communications...
WASHINGTON-As the Federal Communications Commission moves closer to setting guidelines to make telecom equipment and services accessible to disabled individuals, the wireless industry is pressing regulators to back off proposed rules that it claims are too restrictive and burdensome and that run counter to...
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...
The Cleveland, Ohio, suburb of Brooklyn, believed to be the first city in the nation to pass a mandatory seat belt law back in 1966, is making fresh legal tracks again with the approval of an ordinance making it punishable by fine to talk...
WASHINGTON-Wireless telephones will work when the new millennium arrives-right? Well, maybe.The Federal Communications Commission last week refused to give a clean bill of health to the wireless industry regarding the millennium bug because only 31 percent of 300 companies surveyed responded to the FCC's...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission in May likely will complete rules to address wireless 911 calls in areas where only one cellular carrier provides service coverage-an issue that has pitted the cellular industry against two consumer groups.The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and the consumer groups...
