ESPOO, Finland-Nokia Corp. reported its strongest annual operating results in the company's history for the 1999 fourth quarter and year.Net sales grew 48 percent for the year from $13.4 billion in 1998 to $19.9 billion in 1999. Fourth-quarter sales also increased from $4.4 billion...
SAN DIEGO-Qualcomm Inc. announced it shipped on time chip samples and system software for the MSM5000 Mobile Station Modem.The company said this product is the world's first third-generation 1x MultiCarrier solution for Code Division Multiple Access handsets that is compliant with the 3G standard...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission's decision to grant Nokia Corp.-the world's largest mobile phone vendor-a four-month extension to comply with new 911 call-processing rules prompted protests last week by the Wireless Consumers Alliance, which vowed to challenge the ruling and to fund independent testing of...
Qualcomm Inc. took a major step last week to expand its patent and technology portfolio to include mobile location-based services and wireless Internet systems, announcing it acquired San Jose, Calif.-based SnapTrack Inc. for $1 billion in stock.SnapTrack will become a wholly owned subsidiary, operating...
The harmonious relationship between wireless technology and the Internet is making monumental advances in communication, but the rate at which consumers are taking advantage of both is lagging a little behind.To accelerate the current e-commerce frenzy and entice customers into buying more, more often,...
Handsets from Nokia Corp. and Code Division Multiple Access technology dominated the U.S. cellular and personal communications services industry in 1999, while international powerhouse L.M. Ericsson struggled to keep its share of the U.S. market, said reports from The Strategis Group and Dataquest.Nokia claimed...
It is a generally accepted fact that today's dollar doesn't buy as much as it used to, but in the case of wireless airtime, it may actually buy more."Since the introduction of PCS, there is a whole new paradigm of wireless pricing. In most...
SAN DIEGO-Qualcomm Inc. said its MSM3000 chipset and high-speed packet data software solution is featured in handsets developed by several Japanese manufacturers for the 64 kilobits per second, high-speed packet data service launched on Japan's nationwide cdmaOne network.The network, launched on Jan. 7, was...
Two-way operators hope new technology aids capacity constraints.Traditional small two-way radio operators are hoping new technology can ease their capacity problems and offer more integrated services to their customers."There is a real serious question whether smaller operators can exist in tomorrow's marketplace," said Alan...
The Operators Harmonization Group maintains its informal status as members continue to discuss the possibility of becoming an official group.OHG, which began work more than a year ago as a loosely tied group of four operators trying to end the world's heated battle over...
LONDON-The mobile commerce market could reach $200 billion by 2004, according to a study released by Strategy Analytics.The report predicts an explosion in demand for mobile commerce services during the next five years with technology enabling high-speed wireless networks to provide applications for electronic...
As the United States gears up for the commercial launch of Wireless Application Protocol services, the question of interoperability between WAP vendors has become an increasing concern to carriers looking to offer Internet-based services on a variety of handsets.WAP exists as a standard that...
Brazil's spectrum choice in auctioning new personal communications services licenses could be an important decision for the GSM community as it struggles to gain inroads into Latin America.The Brazilian telecom regulatory authority, Anatel, plans to auction new PCS licenses as early as this year,...
It seems the dark cloud that settled over the mobile satellite services industry when Iridium L.L.C. and ICO Global Communications went bankrupt last August has begun to lift, reflected by a stock rally from Globalstar L.P. indicating renewed investor confidence.Globalstar USA, Globalstar L.P.'s exclusive...
If recent announcements by paging vendors and carriers are any indication, two-way paging products and services are poised to make a big splash in 2000.Both Motorola Inc. and Glenayre Technologies Inc. unveiled their long-awaited ReFLEX 25 compatible two-way paging devices last week at the...
There is a chink in Nokia Mobile Phones' armor, and it is the vendor's market share in the cdmaOne handset business.While Nokia sells the most popular handsets in the world, holding more than 30 percent of the total business, its share in the cdmaOne...
SEOUL, South Korea-As part of the Chinese government's telecommunications modernization project, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. was awarded the first-ever commercial contract in China.The agreement, with Hebei Century Mobile Communications Co. Ltd., calls for Samsung to build a Code Division Multiple Access mobile communication system...
Kyocera Corp. hopes to do what no Japanese handset manufacturer has been able to do to date. It wants to become a dominate global vendor.To do that, Kyocera needs to gain a significant share of the market in North America, analysts say. Kyocera has...
In its second major acquisition since going public last spring, Phone.com Inc. signed an agreement to acquire voice portal technology provider @Motion Inc. for $285 million.Phone.com said it hopes to integrate @Motion's Internet voice portal to add voice-recognition services to its MyPhone Wireless Application...
After months of speculation over what would happen to Sprint PCS' GSM network in Washington, D.C., Omnipoint Corp. and VoiceStream Wireless Corp. have agreed to purchase the network for an undisclosed amount, saving their Global System for Mobile communications customers from a potential black...
During the first half of 1999, Latin America handset sales exceeded 9.8 million, according to Dataquest, a U.S.-based market research firm. Handset sales were forecasted to reach 24.5 million units by the end of 1999. Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia accounted for 78 percent of...
DUBLIN, Ireland-At the beginning of the 1990s, analog was the dominant European cellular technology, but during the decade it has been superseded by GSM and soon will be phased out in many countries. However, there appears to be little prospect of third-generation (3G) mobile...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-The guys at the European Commission must be delighted. They battled for more than a decade to liberalize the telecommunications sector and create a single European market.Benefits from a common European identity remain elusive. That might be about to change. Ironically, it...
1999 is behind us, although it won't soon be forgotten. The last year of the 20th century brought tragedy to many locations around the world. It's comforting to know that our industry did its part to lessen the impact of such events on many...
