WASHINGTON-A proposal to assign abbreviated dialing codes nationwide appears to be headed for a major roadblock from the North American Numbering Council. NANC is expected to approve a report in September that will declare no one supports abbreviated dialing codes, said Lori Messing, manager...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association is taking the lead on implementing wireless number portability at the same time it waits for the Federal Communications Commission to rule on its request that the wireless number portability rules be delayed or eliminated early next century.Earlier this...
WASHINGTON-The Superintendent of Rock Creek Park, an urban national park, said it would take five months before an environmental assessment is completed to determine whether Bell Atlantic Mobile can site two antennas inside the park. The National Park Service sent a letter to BAM...
Turns out there is not one but two million-dollar men in the Portals fiasco.Subpoenaed documents provided to congressional investigators by Tennessee developer Franklin Haney last week supposedly reveal that former Tennessee senator Jim Sasser, before becoming U.S. ambassador to China, pocketed $1 million for...
WASHINGTON-The FBI and the Department of Justice are shopping an amendment to congressional appropriators to change the Justice Department budget in a way that would re-write the controversial digital wiretap act.The amendment not only addresses the date issue, but would have Congress order the...
NEW YORK-A Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association group is developing recommendations for handset manufacturers that would reduce fraud potential and facilitate over-the-air customer activations for non-Global System for Mobile Communications carriers.The CTIA Fraud Technology Assessment Group, charged with evaluating and recommending new fraud-prevention measures, has...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association scheduled a forum Aug. 18 in Washington, D.C., to deal with all aspects of number-portability requirements and implementation, said CTIA.Also, CTIA recently issued a document on number portability, outlining the network architecture and operational procedures needed to implement the...
The proposed combination of SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp. could create a big obstacle to the implementation of calling-party-pays service in the United States.Speaking last month at a luncheon sponsored by Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp., Sam Ginn, chairman and chief executive...
WASHINGTON-Local government representatives and the wireless industry appear to be close to announcing procedures for local governments and industry to resolve disputes about siting wireless facilities.The Federal Communications Commission's Local and State Government Advisory Committee hopes to announce a completed alternative dispute resolution at...
WASHINGTON-The wireless industry last week urged the FBI to revise its definition of key words in rules implementing the digital wiretap act.The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association asked the FBI to reconsider its definition of the word "deployed" and to better define the word "impede."...
WASHINGTON-The American novelist Edith Wharton once noted the only thing that distinguishes vice from virtue is point of view. Some might say her comment is an apt description of the current debate about whether the U.S. wireless market should adopt Calling Party Pays (CPP)...
WASHINGTON-The Department of Justice and the FBI filed with the Federal Communications Commission a legal analysis of the controversial punch-list items law enforcement says are necessary to maintain electronic surveillance capabilities. The punch list refers to nine capabilities the telecommunications industry and privacy advocates...
Like a teenager desperately trying to find the right "look," industry associations focused on the mobile data field continue to tweak their strategies for marketing the enigmatic technology.The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association recently announced it renamed its annual mobile data show Wireless Information Technology...
WASHINGTON-Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) will oppose a universal-service proposal endorsed by the Personal Communications Industry Association last week that would earmark half of the 3-percent telephone service excise tax for discounted school and library Internet connections.Pia Pialorsi, a committee spokeswoman, said...
Republicans, joyous over having launched Chinagate, are now writing the script for what they hope will be a best seller come 2000. We'll call it White House in the Unbalance for now.Al Gore, who scored political points as vice president embracing computers with personalities...
WASHINGTON-A hearing on an E911 bill backed by a cellular industry-public-safety coalition and championed by House telecom committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) backfired last week when the measure's supporters were forced to defend their opposition to independent cancer research and to a consumer-group proposal...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission needs to rule on when call-identifying information is "reasonably available" to be given to law enforcement by carriers implementing the digital wiretap act, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association was expected to tell the FCC in comments due at press time.A...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association last week went on the offensive to put in place a technical standard that will allow carriers to alert subscribers of an impending natural disaster or weather emergency.Also, James L. Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, last...
As RCR reported last week, the General Services Administration is giving the Federal Communications Commission the boot. Time to move out of the downtown offices and out to the Portals. By fall. Leases have been canceled. The $17.6 million loaned to the FCC to...
WASHINGTON-The Telecommunications Industry Association rejected the strongest-signal proposal for completing E911 calls, saying it was not technically feasible.The strongest-signal proposal would require cellular carriers to program cell phones to send 911 calls to the A- or B-side system that offers the best signal, regardless...
WASHINGTON-In the midst of such weighty issues as antenna siting, taxes and digital wiretap implementation, the cellular lobby has chosen to lock onto a lesser-known-albeit important-matter involving a proposal to steer 911 calls from analog phones to the strongest signal.The cellular industry, backed by...
WASHINGTON-In two unrelated developments that could reignite the debate over whether wireless technology poses health risks, a new Swedish survey has found possible links between mobile phones and illness symptoms, while a female executive with a brain tumor has retained the largest personal-injury law...
Thanks to the Seinfeld Gang of Four, taxes, CALEA, CPNI, WTR, moratoria, universal service, E911 and swervey drivers have now been eclipsed as major headaches of the day for the wireless industry.Phone etiquette is now numero uno. For the few who missed the series...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association filed comments at the Federal Communications Commission requesting a national calling party pays plan be implemented.Some sort of national framework must exist before wireless carriers can implement calling party pays, and the trade group wants the FCC to provide...
