WASHINGTON-Rep. Connie Morella (R-Md.), chairwoman of the House Science subcommittee on technology, is pressing the Clinton administration for support to prevent U.S. companies from being unfairly muscled out of the international standards-setting process by Europeans for third-generation wireless communications."I am not supporting a specific...
ChinaL.M. Ericsson signed four Global System for Mobile communications contracts in China, which the company values at a total of $756 million. Ericsson will expand existing GSM networks in Shandong, Liaoning and Heilongjiang. The fourth contract calls for the company to provide a new...
The European wireless community has been reasonably successful at being able to feel superior to its U.S. counterparts. Europe has a unified digital standard. It offers short message services. It introduced introduced PCN.But today I feel equal. A study by Strategy Analytics called Creating...
HONG KONGHong Kong's SmarTone Telecommunications Holdings Ltd. announced agreements with Star Telecom International Holdings Ltd. and Telecom Service Ltd. to acquireP Plus Communications Ltd., a PCS operator, for about US$95 million. The news did not come as a surprise; it has been rumored for...
MELBOURNE, Australia-The Australian government has called an urgent review to end speculation about the future of analog mobile phone coverage in regional and remote areas of the country. The analog system, based on the AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service) standard, was earmarked for closure...
DENMARKMobilix, a France Telecom subsidiary, has begun offering services on its DCS 1800 network.GERMANYLucent Technologies Inc.'s Microelectronics Group acquired Optimay GmbH, a privately held software-development company based in Munich. Optimay, which will become a subsidiary of Lucent Technologies International, develops software products and services...
OXFORD, England-Japan's largest wireless operator, NTT DoCoMo, has allied itself closely with the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) operator camp.The company signed a cooperation agreement-covering technology developments for third-generation systems-at the GSM MoU Association's 39th Plenary Meeting at the end of April in...
Four of the larger SMR (Specialized Mobile Radio) operators in the United States have merged to create what should be the nation's largest 220 MHz SMR provider. The combination of Incom Communications Corp., US MobilComm, SMR Advisory Group L.C. and Narrowband Network Systems would...
The product photograph titled, "GSM Network in a Box," published on page 41 of the March/April 1998 issue of Global Wireless actually shows the complete InterWAVE Communications International Ltd. product line. The GSM Network in a Box is the product to the far left.
MACH India Pvt Ltd. entered into a contract with Bharti Cellular of India to offer cellular clearinghouse services for the country. The agreement includes MACH Data, the clearing service for automatic roaming; MACH Finance, financial clearing and settlement services; MACH Fraud, exposure and high-usage...
China Telecom (Hong Kong) in late April announced the purchase of Jiangsu Mobile Communication for US$2.9 billion. China Telecom said the purchase gives it close to 4.8 million cellular subscribers in China, according to The Wall Street Journal. Jiangsu, one of China's largest and...
BEIJING-In the wireless world, China no longer is a forgotten backwater, but is rapidly moving to center stage. According to the new Ministry of Information Industry (MII), the country had a 92-percent growth rate last year, bringing total mobile users to 13 million, and...
Croatia has announced a tender to construct and operate a nationwide GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) network. Bids were due 15 April.A consortium led by ABN Amro Bank N.V. and N.M. Rothschild & Sons has been appointed to advise the Estonian government in...
MELBOURNE, Australia-Australia's long-awaited PCS spectrum auctions began at the tail end of April with nine bidders vying for 230 lots in the 800 MHz and 1800 MHz spectrum bands.Marking a key stage in Australia's long-term plans to establish a fully competitive market, the PCS...
LONDON-After years of uncertainty and confusion, the Russian wireless telecommunications market finally seems set to come out of hibernation and deliver what investors and analysts have been expecting for some time.There's certainly possibilities for growth following a slow start. At the end of 1997,...
MELBOURNE, Australia-The Australian Communications Authority has released a report on the technical options for implementing Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in Australia. The report recognizes the biggest challenge is choosing the best technology to implement MNP.As yet, MNP is not fully operational anywhere in the...
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-Egypt will work together with South Africa in both the private and public sector to provide telecommunications aid to the African continent, announced Hosni Mubarak, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, at the African Telecom '98 conference in May.Mubarak was not...
BEIJING-The Chinese Ministry of Information Industry 22 April announced the first domestically designed and manufactured digital mobile telecommunications equipment has been connected to the local network in Shanghai. The ministry added that China now is one of the few countries capable of producing this...
TOKYO-NEC Corp. and United Kingdom-based ERA Technology Ltd. signed a joint-venture agreement to design and develop next-generation wireless network infrastructure based on the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) standard, said NEC.The venture, called Telecom Modus Ltd., will be located in Leatherhead, Surrey, United Kingdom....
CASABLANCA, Morocco-For Morocco, 29 June 1997 marked a point of no return for the country's telecommunications industry-a turning point that changed forever the way telephony is looked at in the country. Morocco's lower house that day approved a bill liberalizing the telecom industry.The bill...
WASHINGTON-The heat is up again in Latin America, and it has nothing to do with El Nino.The region's unmet demand for services and high potential for growth have called the attention of Americans, Europeans and Asians vying for a piece of the action. Until...
NokiaGSM phonesNokia Corp. introduced three new GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) phones operating on the 900 MHz frequency band. The Nokia 8810 has a protective slide cover and is accented with a touch of silver. It offers built-in data communications capabilities with infrared...
WARSAW, Poland-Four satellite network operators joined the GSM MoU Association during its annual meeting in April in Warsaw, Poland, according to the group.Globalstar L.P., Iridium L.L.C., ICO Global Communications and ACeS were part of the 41 new members to join the association."The addition of...
