BROWSING: Merit

WASHINGTON—Alaska Native Wireless L.L.C. and VoiceStream Wireless Corp. told the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday that agreements signed by NextWave Telecom Inc. in an effort to emerge from bankruptcy make NextWave ineligible to hold the C- and F-block licenses in question."The combination of NextWave's...

WASHINGTON-An Illinois state court this week is poised to rule on a proposed $1.4 million health-related privacy suit against the cellular industry, which faces increased litigation as science raises more questions about whether mobile phones can cause brain cancer and other neurological disorders. The...

Shortly following Winstar Communications Inc.'s announcement last Monday that it had failed to make aggregate interest payments of approximately $75 million on loans, the local multipoint distribution service carrier voluntarily filed for bankruptcy, and then in a surprise move, filed a $10 billion lawsuit...

Everyone knew it was coming. Everyone who cared to listen that is. Concerted legal action alleging use of mobile phones has caused brain tumors is to be launched in the United States. No surprise there. Everyone knew such litigation has been under preparation for...

Surprise! We got a new do! I'm excited! We have made some changes (some long overdue) to improve the paper and I want to tell you about them.Probably the biggest change is our new name and masthead: RCR Wireless News. I think we hit upon...

WASHINGTON-The Personal Communications Industry Association is urging the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Qwest Corp. rules that require it to offer interconnection with paging carriers amounts to unfairly taking Qwest property.Qwest, formerly U S West Inc., was upset...

FranceFrance released details of its plan to award four 3G wireless phone licenses based on a beauty contest. Bidders, given a 31 January, 2001, deadline to submit proposals, will be judged on the strength of their business plans, before being selected to pay US$4.5...

WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, clearing the way for research to begin on whether radio-frequency emissions from wireless phones pose any health risk.Under the agreement, the FDA will review research,...

DUBLIN, Ireland-After decades of tight state control, Eastern European telecommunications markets are waking up to the reality of telecommunications liberalization.But even though many of these countries accept that liberalization will have to proceed more rapidly, the process is not without frustrations for potential new...

WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard, a vigilant proponent of equal employment opportunity rules and a champion of disabled rights, has been hit with seven job discrimination lawsuits against his agency during the past 17 months.The suits, filed in U.S. District Court here, allege...

VoiceStream Wireless Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Stanton said the carrier is likely to complete its mergers with Omnipoint Corp. and Aerial Communications Inc. in the first quarter as the companies wait for government approvals.Three parties have lodged protests with the Federal...

WASHINGTON-Qualcomm Inc. and Richard Bliss, a former employee temporarily imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges in 1997, have reached an out-of-court settlement to end a lawsuit that accused the San Diego firm of negligence by failing to supply Bliss with proper permits to build...

TOKYO- To preserve more resources for its new business objectives and recover a balance between a currently too-heavy workforce and a shrinking beeper business, NTT DoCoMo announced it is restructuring its Beeper Business Division. Some of the 400 employees currently working for the division...

WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission was given some advice on FCC reform last week as Michael Kennedy of Motorola Inc. suggested the FCC create a spectrum management board comprised of bureau chiefs to examine the "impact of domestic and international spectrum allocation issues."The suggestion of...

Several class-action lawsuits have be filed by various law firms representing shareholders of Orbital Sciences Corp., claiming the company overstated both revenues and earnings.Orbital Sciences is the parent company of Orbcomm Global L.P., a low-earth-orbit satellite operator providing data and messaging services.Class-action lawsuits were...

WASHINGTON-Qualcomm Inc. is waging a major court battle against the Federal Communications Commission to gain recognition of Code Division Multiple Access technology innovation in personal communications services and the potentially lucrative prize that comes with it. The Qualcomm case will be briefed in the...

In the past year, paging companies have engineered a striking makeover designed to change their "look" to better meet the business style of the new millennium.Just as the parachute pants and spiked haircuts of the 1980s are out and the khaki pants and George...

NEW YORK-At least four class-action shareholder lawsuits were filed between June 25 and July 1 against Premiere Technologies Inc., an Atlanta-based company that provides enhanced services to paging and other telecommunications carriers.In January 1997, Paging Network Inc. began offering Premiere Technologies' WorldLink platform of...

WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission rejected an appeal by SkyTel Communications Corp.-formerly Mobile Telecommunication Technologies Corp.-that argued the paging carrier deserved its narrowband personal communications license for free as a pioneer's preference award.The FCC wants the company to pay $33 million for the license."We do...

Switzerland last week awarded national licenses to two of five rival consortia-diAx mobile and Orange Communications SA-to operate wireless networks in competition with the country's single operator, Swisscom.The winning consortia beat out Unilimitel, which partnered Deutsche Telekom with France Telecom; Fortel SA, a venture...

It was designed to be a way to compete against Motorola Inc.'s FLEX technology, but instead the joint venture between Nexus Telocation Systems Ltd. and American Paging Inc. has dissolved into a lawsuit and counter lawsuit.In the most recent round of feuding, American Paging...

Bob Hope made a lot of money telling jokes, but he made a great deal more in the real-estate business. Asked to explain his real-estate investment strategy, he said, "I just went out to where the streets stopped and bought the property."This is the...

NEW YORK-Global TeleSystems Group Inc., an American carrier providing wireless and wireline phone service in the former Soviet Republic and Eastern Europe, plans to go public.With Merrill Lynch & Co., New York, as lead underwriter, the company has registered with the Securities and Exchange...

SEOUL, Korea-Responding to the recent turmoil in Korea's economy, Samsung Group said it will reorganize management-making cuts in all Korea-based business units-refocus investments on core growth businesses and cut costs across the board.In an effort to bolster the Korea-based conglomerate's competitiveness, Samsung said it...