HANNOVER, Germany-Orange plc made several announcements from CeBIT '99, the European trade show. Orange signed an agreement with Nokia Corp. to begin a major trial of its Wireless Application Protocol Gateway. The Nokia WAP Gateway enables WAP terminals to use WAP services located at...
NEW YORK-A subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., which holds a minority stake in both Orange plc and Western Wireless Corp., plans to issue $547 million in Euro-denominated bonds due 2006 and about $194 million in Hong Kong dollar-denominated notes due 2002.Hutchison has...
U.S. Global System for Mobile communications carriers took a financial beating in 1998, but analysts expect 1999 to look brighter for these carriers as they look to butter up their bottom lines and find strategic partners.Tight financing, high churn levels and a general under-performance...
As the end of the millennium approaches, it is worth pondering whether the recent bout of mergers and acquisitions are precedents to some colossal event of biblical proportions or merely defensive strategies of companies safeguarding themselves against falling commodity prices, uncertain technological change, increased...
WASHINGTON-House telecommunications subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) said he will pursue early passage this year of legislation to improve wireless E911 service and foster antenna siting on federal land, a move likely to re-energize opposition from local officials, conservationists and from environmentalists who last...
The introduction of digital phone technology has changed dramatically the landscape of wireless communications across the globe and put the heat on the global paging industry.Paging's old advantages of small size and cheaper service are being whittled away, as digital phones shrink in size...
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...
Some analysts are expecting Code Division Multiple Access infrastructure spending to taper off in 1999 as cdmaOne infrastructure deployments in China remain questionable."I think China is the lynch pin for CDMA infrastructure going into next year and to a certain extent greater Asia," said...
BEIJING-Six wireless operators with 11 networks is the daunting choice offered to Hong Kong's techno-savvy consumers.The mobile phone scene here is a lot brighter than one would have expected just one-and-a-half years ago, with the territory's hand-over to the People's Republic of China on...
One can only imagine the potential import of the victory of Jesse "The Body" Ventura, the ex-professional wrestler and Reform Party candidate who won the Minnesota gubernatorial election last Tuesday.Policy making in America may never be the same. Jesse could change everything. Indeed, why...
EDI Telecom Ltd. and Tadiran Telecommunications Ltd. announced they signed an agreement under which the two will merge in a stock-for-stock transaction.Mobile Systems International, United Kingdom, and U.S.-based Metapath Software Corp. announced the two companies are merging. Both companies provide software-based applications and services...
The Argentine government, in an attempt to proceed with the PCS auctions currently in judicial limbo, is considering selling two PCS licenses each for the northern and southern regions of the country, excluding the greater Buenos Aires area. This maneuvering would speed up the...
MELBOURNE, Australia-The Australian communications industry has applauded Telstra Corp.'s decision to build its second national mobile phone network using CDMA technology.Industry groups, including the Australian Telecommunications Users Group and the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, have openly welcomed Telstra's move, hailing it as progressive and...
SINGAPORE-One of Singapore's four paging operators has been put up for sale, but there so far have been no takers due to poor growth prospects. Hutchison IntraPage, which began operations less than two years ago when the market was liberalized, reported a loss of...
Lucky for John Glenn and his Discovery crew, they will see the heavens much as it was when the 77-year-old astronaut from Ohio last visited space 36 years ago.You see, about a decade from now there'll be more than 1,500 birds in orbit. What...
WASHINGTON-On the basis of high-profile, sweeping bills, wireless telecom lobbyists had a miserable time of it in the 105th Congress.But given that lobbyists operated in the Age of Scandal, the results do not look so bad.Success this time around can be measured both in...
WASHINGTON-Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) abruptly tabled his E911 federal-land antenna-siting bill last week after controversy erupted over local zoning rights and liability, effectively killing the legislation for this year and setting the stage for an aggressive campaign to pass the measure...
NEW YORK-Domestic wireless carriers "now have prepaid (services) fully introduced throughout their geographic territories," but they lag behind their peers abroad in fully tapping its potential, said Scott R. Cassell, president of Globalnet Communications, an Indianapolis consulting firm."It's exciting to see prepaid take off...
JERUSALEM, Israel-In the southern town of Ashkelon stands a larger-than-life black marble grave stone that is as much a monument to the teenager buried in the plot as it is to the cell phone he loved to cradle: the stone, in fact, is a replica...
JERUSALEM, Israel-Afraid of scaring Israeli consumers, wireless carriers operating in this nation of 2 million cellular phone users are awaiting the arrival of a third player, Partner Communications Co. Ltd., before tackling head-on the thorny issue of possible health risks associated with prolonged cell...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-The United Kingdom likes to portray itself as a pioneer in cellular. Certainly it was early on the scene, with two analog TACS (Total Access Communications System) networks entering commercial service in January 1985.In mid-1992, the United Kingdom was at the front...
SINGAPORE-One of the strongest indications Singapore's paging market may have reached saturation was given in July when three of Hutchison Paging's top executives quit en masse, reportedly over poor sales and disagreements over the running of the 15-month-old firm.Chief Operating Officer Raphael Goh, together...
MELBOURNE, Australia-Telstra Corp., Australia's largest communications company, announced it is getting out of the paging business. It hopes to complete the sale to Link Telecommunications Pty. Ltd. by October, giving Link about a two-thirds share of the market. Telstra made its announcement on the...
BANGLADORE, India-Bangladesh is one of the world's least-developed countries, and most of the rural heartland lacks roads and electricity, as well as telephones. For its 140 million people, Bangladesh has just 500,000 phones, nearly all in the urban centers of Dhaka and Chittagong.Grameen Telecom...
