WASHINGTON-As the unlikely union of labor and business leaders ratcheted up pressure last week to kill legislation that would nix Deutsche Telekom AG's $50.7 billion purchase of VoiceStream Wireless Corp., it appeared the controversy could get dragged into a bigger fight between European Union...
WASHINGTON-With Congress stuck in town at least another week and prospects growing that pending legislation will be rolled into one or two catch-all spending bills, the fate of several key wireless bills remains unclear.GOP lawmakers particularly are anxious to wrap up the 106th Congress...
WASHINGTON-The German government said it will sell its stake in Deutsche Telekom AG, a move that could blunt legislative attempts to prohibit DT's takeover of VoiceStream Wireless Corp.Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said last week he opposes legislation that would prohibit U.S. telecom...
TOKYO-NTT DoCoMo Inc. and America Online Inc. last week announced their long-expected business alliance. The combination of the largest mobile carrier in Japan and the largest Internet service provider in the world will give NTT DoCoMo a foothold to launch its popular i-mode services,...
WASHINGTON-In a follow-up to a recent hearing on the proposed Deutsche Telekom AG takeover of VoiceStream Wireless Corp., the House telecom subcommittee last week sent a letter to Charlene Barshefsky, the United States trade representative, asking her to explain why USTR has apparently not...
WASHINGTON-With worries in some quarters that America will lose the third-generation mobile- phone market to Europe and Asia, the blame game has begun.Leading the finger-pointing is John Stanton, chief executive officer of VoiceStream Wireless Corp. and chairman of the Cellular Telecom-munications Industry Association.Stanton, addressing...
WASHINGTON-With Congress back at work for a fall legislative session that will be cut short by the 2000 presidential election, several key bills of interest to the wireless industry remain in play.The GOP-led Congress, among other things, is anxious to repeal the 3-percent federal...
WASHINGTON-Is Deutsche Telekom AG's proposed purchase of VoiceStream Wireless Corp. a case of foreign investment or a protectionist grab of a foreign government? This was the question examined last Thursday by the House telecom subcommittee in a five-hour hearing."We know good and well that...
WASHINGTON-The multi-agency government panel that will be responsible for assessing national security implications of Deutsche Telekom AG's $56 billion purchase of VoiceStream Wireless Corp. and other future telecom mergers involving foreign buyers was sharply criticized by congressional investigators in a little-noticed report two months...
There is a great disconnect in the wireless industry. Whether it's mismanagement, industry hype, flawed law, Wall Street greed-or some combination of the above-is unclear. But it doesn't matter. The losers will be consumers, rank-and-file investors and pension funds.To illustrate this disconnect, take a...
It was no surprise. Powertel Inc., one of the last major U.S. regional carriers, will fold operations with VoiceStream Wireless Corp. Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG, which weeks ago announced plans to buy VoiceStream, has agreed to purchase Powertel for around $5.89 billion.Analysts speculated on...
TORONTO-The consolidation trend in the North American wireless sector is intensifying. The prevailing wisdom is that it is no longer good enough to be merely a regional or national carrier with transborder capabilities. The game plan is to be part of a global presence,...
NEW YORK-The number of licenses awarded, not the prices paid for them, likely will lead Standard & Poor's Corp. to downgrade the debt ratings of many winning bidders in Germany's recent third-generation wireless auctions."The total paid, 50.5 billion euros ($45.85 billion), conforms to our...
TOKYO-Japan's dominant wireless carrier, NTT DoCoMo, is in talks with SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. about taking a minority stake in the combined mobile venture between the two U.S. carriers, according to a report in the Aug. 17 edition of the Financial Times.The...
NEW YORK-Merger prospects tend to have a significant impact on a company's share price, although the degree of that influence can be difficult to precisely identify.The second-largest domestic personal communications services carrier, VoiceStream Wireless Corp., saw its stock price rise by less than $5,...
Bids in the German auction of Universal Mobile Telecommunications System licenses have jumped substantially during week two, with the total bid amount standing at around $22 billion at the end of nine days and 115 rounds. The price tag thus far is nearly 65...
FRANKFURT, Germany-Due to its pending acquisition of VoiceStream Wireless Corp., Germany's Deutsche Telekom has delayed the planned initial public offering of its mobile arm, T-Mobil. The IPO initially was set for the fourth quarter, and the company did not give a new time frame...
VoiceStream Wireless Corp. last week reiterated its confidence in its merger with German operator Deutsche Telekom as both companies' stock values dropped since the merger announcement.By press time, the deal was valued at about $45.3 billion, or $171 per VoiceStream share, compared with $50.7...
MILAN, Italy-Italian communications group Tiscali is said to be looking for a partner for its consortium to bid for a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System license in Italy later this year. Deutsche Telekom AG and Hutchison Whampoa were cited in international press reports as possible...
WASHINGTON-While international attention is focused on Deutsche Telekom AG's $50.3 billion bid for VoiceStream Wireless Corp. and the fireworks it has set off in Congress, merger and acquisition activity in the coming months is expected to be dominated by smaller wireless transactions as large...
WASHINGTON-Deutsche Telekom AG, after announcing its intent to buy VoiceStream Wireless Corp. , spent last week trying to kill an appropriations bill rider that could kill the deal and others like it involving purchases of U.S. telecom firms by companies majority owned by foreign...
WASHINGTON-House lawmakers late last week failed to cast a floor vote on appropriations legislation that was to include a repeal of the telephone tax, putting that measure and other wireless-related legislation on hold until Congress returns from its August recess.The House version of the...
Sen. Ernest Hollings has opened a can of wireless worms.Hollings' efforts to block foreign-government-owned companies from taking too large a stake in U.S. telecom businesses is forcing me to look at the global economy in a new perspective.Reminding everyone to play fair is much...
FRANKFURT, Germany-Deutsche Telekom said it signed an agreement to sell its 24.5-percent stake in Wind, its joint venture in Italy. Enel and France Telecom will purchase the stake for about $2.5 billion.After the transaction, Enel's stake in Wind will increase to 56.6 percent from...
