NEW YORK-Smart cards must overcome a chicken-and-egg problem before they can expand their use in wireless devices beyond their established role as subscriber identification modules in Global System for Mobile communications products.The vision for smart cards is that they will become the tiny pocket...
SAN DIEGO-PacketVideo Corp., a provider of wireless multimedia communication software and service for mobile applications, announced it will provide NTT DoCoMo with a software test bench that verifies the newly developed 3G-324M standard and interoperability between various mobile terminals.The software allows NTT DoCoMo to...
DUBLIN, Ireland, and BELLEVUE, Wash.-Building on their recent interoperability agreement, the GSM Association and the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium agreed to work together for common global service requirements, which include the GPRS/EDGE data evolution of TDMA and GSM technologies as input to the Third...
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...
This holiday season heralded the beginning of the e-commerce revolution, and wireless operators have the opportunity to cash in on it with the growing proliferation of Internet-enabled wireless phones and handheld computers.Optimism among the analyst community is rampant. Most recently, Strategy Analytics predicted the...
NEW YORK-Calling it "a first step toward demonstrating fully open standards in General Packet Radio Services," Symmetry Communications Systems Inc. said it will collaborate with Lucent Technologies Inc. on interoperability testing of 2.5 generation wireless network elements.Venture-backed Symmetry, based in San Jose, Calif., came...
TAMPA, Fla.-GTE Telecommunication Services Inc. and Brazil's Embratel announced an alliance to provide roaming interoperability services to the Mercosul trading region in Latin America. The agreement is the first of its kind in the region and will be available in the first quarter.The Mercosul...
INDIANAPOLIS-Brightpoint Inc. announced it has joined the Wireless Application Protocol Forum as an associate member. According to Brightpoint, the membership demonstrates the company's focus on providing contract manufacturing, fulfillment and other integrated logistics services to members of the WAP Forum.The WAP Forum is an...
At the end of each year, the RCR editorial staff looks back on the news events that made RCR headlines and decides which were the most significant, industry-impacting stories of the past 12 months. Here are our picks for 1999 in chronological order.1. Jan....
In a deal mirroring one recently completed by Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc. announced it will license the Palm operating system from Palm Computing Inc. for use in future wireless products.In addition, Motorola and Nokia, as well as America Online, have invested a minority equity...
SYDNEY, Australia-At the recently completed Wireless Application Protocol Forum member meeting, the organization announced its membership has surpassed 250.The group also announced a formal liaison relationship with the World Wide Web Consortium to define the next-generation of Web specifications to support wireless devices.In addition,...
SANTA CLARA, Calif.-The Bluetooth Special Interest Group announced several new company members, including 3Com Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Motorola Inc.These industry powerhouses have joined founders L.M. Ericsson, IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Nokia and Toshiba Corp. in a new group effort called...
The Operators Harmonization Group began work more than a year ago as a loosely tied group of four operators trying to end the world's heated battle over third-generation technology standards. Today this ad hoc group, which now numbers 40 operators from around the world,...
Sprint PCS signed a seven-year master service agreement with Ericsson Inc. for Code Division Multiple Access equipment, though the nationwide carrier has not committed to buying any infrastructure from the vendor."We have not committed to buying any equipment," said Tom Murphy, spokesman for Sprint...
Arch Communications Group Inc. said it will offer weather updates to paging customers through a strategic marketing relationship with The Weather Channel's weather.com Internet site. The weather.com site offers a Wireless Weather service to customers using a text-enabled messaging device. The agreement is its...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission will establish a year 2000 "war room" that will be manned from Dec. 30 through the first part of January, depending on what happens when the year, century and millennium switches from 1900 to 2000, the FCC told RCR last...
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.-Phone.com Inc. announced last Tuesday the public offering of 6.6 million shares of common stock at $135 per share in conjunction with a two-for-one stock split.As a result of the announcement, the price of the company's shares closed at $135.06 last Wednesday,...
Enhanced specialized mobile radio operators are poised to lead the country in rolling out Wireless Application Protocol services next year.Today, no U.S. wireless provider offers full WAP services. But SMR operators Nextel Communications Inc. and Southern Linc both have embraced pre-WAP services, with an...
GENEVA-A group of radio experts on IMT-2000, which met in Helsinki, Finland between Oct. 25 and Nov. 5, have approved a set of terrestrial and satellite radio interface specifications for IMT-2000 that will allow mobile operators to evolve their pre-IMT-2000 networks toward third-generation service...
It could have been an isolated path for TDMA operators going forward as they struggled for economies of scale in their businesses, but with a new agreement with the GSM Association, the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium hopes to gain access to the worldwide equipment...
HELSINKI-Nokia Networks, the infrastructure arm of Nokia Corp., said it and Mitsubishi Electric initiated interoperability testing between their products and solutions supporting the Wireless Application Protocol 1.1.The intent of the tests is to enhance the compatibility of WAP-based products and services, ensuring they will...
The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) had the biggest coming-out party of its 20-month lifespan during Telecom '99 in Geneva, with more than 100 carriers, vendors and content providers displaying WAP and WAP-related products-warts and all.While WAP's momentum has grown all year, many consider Telecom...
The GSM Association and the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium (UWCC) announced they signed a memorandum of understanding to work toward worldwide interoperability between GSM andTDMA technologies.The nearly 490 GSM and TDMA carriers currently have 290 million subscribers worldwide.Member companies of the two associations will...
Phone.com added to its mounting momentum by signing a definitive agreement to buy the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) products and operations of infrastructure software company APiON of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The deal provides an entry point to Phone.com for selling its WAP products to...
