GENEVA-As any one of the tens of thousands of visitors who thronged the halls of February's GSM World Congress knows, the latest word in GSM services is Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). If the sheer quantity of recent WAP-related announcements is anything to go by,...
GENEVA-Late in the evening of 21 April, fax machines on the desks of night editors at Europe's major dailies suddenly began to hum in unison, roused by a simple, one-page press statement. That single page would, within hours, rock the foundations of the telecom...
In recent weeks, U.S. and European telecommunications companies have been pooling their resources to provide wireless phones, airtime and money to the refugees, relief workers and media involved in the ethnic crisis in Kosovo.Several weeks ago, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata...
Sprint Corp. announced April 20 first-quarter consolidated revenues of $4.72 billion, a 16-percent increase from the $4.08 billion posted for the same period of 1998. The next day Sprint said it awarded Lucent Technologies Inc. a $780 million equipment contract.Kansas City, Mo.-based Sprint is...
Just when Telecom Italia Spa seemed to have no defense left to ward off the hostile takeover bid from rival Italian telecom operator Olivetti Spa, its seemingly hopeless plea for a white knight to save the day was answered by Deutsche Telekom.The German operator's...
United KingdomL.M. Ericsson and U.K. operator One 2 One signed a $320 million contract under which Ericsson will supply radio base stations and base station controller equipment to expand One 2 One's Global System for Mobile communications network.CanadaPhilsar Electronics announced an agreement with IBM...
The announcement last week that Comcast Corp. and MediaOne Group signed an agreement to merge in a $60 billion deal driven by broadband cable networks could affect the wireless industry halfway around the world.MediaOne's international wireless interests, which cover 4.3 million customers primarily in...
TOKYO-Anticipating the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU's) scheduled March decision regarding key characteristics for the third-generation cellular, IMT-2000, Japanese carriers are mounting efforts to be able to kick off their 3G businesses earlier than any other nation.Japan Telecom Co. (JT), in cooperation with Nissan Motor...
The Wireless Application Protocol effort gained momentum last week at the GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, with several Global System for Mobile communications carriers and handset manufacturers announcing WAP-compatible products.Nokia Corp. announced both a WAP-compatible handset and an agreement with France Telecom Group...
While wireless data applications made a big splash at Wireless '99 last week in New Orleans, a new company quietly slipped into the pool with the introduction of a new end-to-end mobile data service solution called Saraide.com.Saraide.com is a joint venture among Microcell Telecommunications...
Companies already are feeling the pinch from Brazil's falling currency, which, at RCR press time, had lost about 20 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar since Brazil's central bank first moved to devalue the real.BellSouth Corp. said it will record a foreign...
The State Department late last month urged the European Commission to allow U.S. third-generation wireless equipment and service providers a fair opportunity to compete in Europe.In a letter sent to EC Commissioner Martin Bangemann Dec. 19, the United States expressed concern Europe may be...
GENEVA-Stop in for a lunchtime croque monsieur at any of the bistros that line the Boulevard St. Germain in Paris, and you'll hear a new sound mingling with the clink and clank of plates and glasses. For better or worse, the chirp of the...
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-As Africa enters the threshold of the African Renaissance and progresses toward privatizing and liberalizing its telecommunications sectors, powerful alliances are being forged in the wireless arena."The rapid privatization of the telecommunications sector in east African countries and southern Africa is attracting...
NEW YORK-Telekomunikacja Polska SA, Poland's national telecommunications carrier, was expected to raise about $1 billion last week in a private placement of debt to about 300 institutional investors.Late last month, the supervisory board of TPSA decided to increase the planned offering of five-year and...
NEW YORK-Panafon, the largest cellular carrier in Greece, raised $2.42 billion Nov. 20 in a global public stock offering of 26.9 million shares.Additionally, France Telecom Mobile International, the overseas arm of the French telecommunications company, said it will sell a 13-percent stake the Greek...
PolandPoland may call tenders for three new mobile phone licenses for Global System for Mobile communications 900 MHz and 1800 MHz systems during the first half of next year. Reuters reported that the country's telecommunications minister Marek Zdrojewski said the tenders would be issued...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden-Technor International Inc. subsidiary, CellPoint Systems AB, agreed to allow French Global System for Mobile operator France Telecom Mobiles to test and evaluate its GSM positioning technology for the French market.To date, the technology has been used only in Sweden and South Africa,...
NEW YORK-Telecommunications carriers, equipment manufacturers, regulators and financiers are invited to attend the second steering committee meeting Nov. 9 of a new organization being formed to promote competitive markets and capital availability in developing nations.The Association for Competitive International Telecom is modeled after the...
Nippon Ido Tsushin Corp. (IDO) announced it will stop its analog cellular service based on the NTT standard as of the end of March 1999 and instead will use the 6.5 MHz band for cdmaOne digital service. The company, which currently has 16,000 analog...
Italy's Communications Minister Antonio Maccanico was reported in foreign press as saying the country may engage in yet another auction for a fourth mobile phone license, possibly before the end of the year.Maccanico said the growth rate for the mobile phone industry in Italy...
NEW YORK-Paris-based France Telecom Group reported Sept. 17 that its Itineris Global System for Mobile communications customers totaled 4.26 million at the end of August, giving it a 51-percent market share.The carrier said its cellular customer base doubled between June 30, 1997, and June...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-Unseemly and ongoing disputes over intellectual property rights seem to have hijacked the current debate about third-generation (3G) cellular. Posturing by radio manufacturers continues to dominate the news in the air-interface standards-selection process. But the real issues lie elsewhere.The real issues are...
The government of Brazil received premiums of more than 200 percent over minimum bid requirements on some of the cellular properties it auctioned off last week.The sealed-bid auction last Wednesday that split Telecomunicacoes Brasileiros S.A. (Telebras) among several international and local players earned the...
