WASHINGTON-The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, growing increasingly concerned about the use of mobile phones and other high-tech gadgets in vehicles, plans to expand its review of driver distractions to include Web services and other digital devices that car manufacturers intend to integrate into...
Is it a bird? A plane? No, it's Craig McCaw, swooping in to rescue yet another struggling satellite wireless phone company-leading a group of investors to provide $74.6 million in interim financing for the bankrupt Iridium L.L.C.This is McCaw's second performance in his satellite...
WASHINGTON-As wireless e-commerce struggles to establish itself as an industry mainstay, it faces major legal, technical and security challenges like the cyber attacks of last week that temporarily shut down several popular Web sites and triggered a Justice Department probe of such activities.With forecasts...
While Vodafone AirTouch plc last week advanced its merger with Germany's Mannesmann AG, the company indicated it may look to fill in its footprint with smaller acquisitions.In particular, the company has been closing in on a bid for a stake in Spain's second-largest mobile...
WASHINGTON-Rather than granting a spectrum-cap waiver requested by Arch Communications Group Inc., the Federal Communications Commission should remove the cap altogether, said Metrocall Inc. in comments filed last week. Meanwhile, two traditional one-way paging carriers urged the FCC to reject the waiver request.Narrowband personal...
There they were-Bill Clinton in Davos and Al Gore in the Granite State-basking in the glory of a record U.S. economic expansion fueled by a raging high-tech sector of mobile phones and dot-coms.While it deserves some credit, the administration either is unwilling or incapable...
WASHINGTON-Richard Blumenthal, the high-profile Connecticut attorney general who played key roles in successful lawsuits against Microsoft Corp. and the tobacco industry, has joined his counterparts in California and Wisconsin in urging the Federal Communications Commission to declare that state laws banning unfair deceptive practices...
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. on Friday officially asked the Federal Communications Commission to grant it spectrum in the upcoming channel 60-69 auctions.Qualcomm wants the commission to quickly award it spectrum to make up for the pioneer's preference license it repeatedly denied Qualcomm in the last decade...
After five years, Bell Atlantic Mobile got the last laugh. Long-time opponents of BAM cell tower construction in Rock Creek Park had it all planned: They would resort to civil disobedience to block the siting of a 130-foot antenna when the BAM crew arrived. But...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden-L.M. Ericsson reported 1999 pretax profit dropped 10 percent to $1.89 billion, ahead of analysts' expectations.Sales for the fourth quarter increased 25 percent to $8.36 billion, with mobile systems as a primary contributor. For the year, sales totaled $24.4 billion, a 17-percent increase...
Perhaps the greatest indicator of the wireless data industry's rise to popularity is the way paging carriers are positioning themselves in the space today.Pioneering wireless data carriers like American Mobile Satellite Corp. and BellSouth Wireless Data L.P. started the trend by offering paging-like services...
WASHINGTON-Peter Angelos, the powerful Baltimore lawyer who has successfully litigated against the tobacco industry, asbestos manufacturers and others in personal injury cases, is looking into the mobile phone health issue."We have some people we represent and we're looking at that," Angelos told RCR last...
Wireless carriers and Wall Street are excited about the huge revenue potential advertising via mobile phones could bring in the future, but just how to offer it to customers is a looming question.Regulatory requirements to allow wireless 911 location will drive the advent of...
Cable & Wireless plc announced it is in discussions regarding a proposed merger between Cable & Wireless HKT Ltd. and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. Such a merger would create the largest independent telecom group in the Asia-Pacific region."These talks are at a stage where there...
LONDON-BT Cellnet said it will be the first U.K. mobile phone operator to commercially launch General Packet Radio Service this summer. The carrier also officially launched commercial Wireless Application Protocol service.BT Cellnet's GPRS service will begin with a 500-person trial, followed by commercial service...
REDMOND, Wash.-GTE Wireless announced it has selected InfoSpace.com Inc. to provide a wireless Internet services platform that GTE mobile phone users can access from both their mobile phones and personal computers.Services are expected to include one-click e-commerce services, instant messaging, information services, localized content...
WASHINGTON-With the legal and regulatory actions behind them, creditors for bankrupt Geotek Communications Inc. now must decide what to do with a bundle of major-market specialized mobile radio licenses it planned to sell to Nextel Communications Inc. before a federal judge here ruled otherwise...
Geoworks Corp. last week unveiled a licensing program to collect royalties on a user-interface method employed by the Wireless Application Protocol and Wireless Markup Language for which it says it holds essential intellectual property rights.While others have made essential IPR claims on WAP technology,...
WASHINGTON-The Clinton administration, still struggling to craft a third-generation mobile phone spectrum position for this spring's World Radiocommunication Conference in Turkey, has organized a 15-member industry-government committee and directed it to come up with recommendations by the middle of next month.The decision to set...
ORLAND PARK, Ill.-Andrew Corp. announced the use of its base station antenna products and services to expand Beijing Telecom Greatwall Mobile Communications Ltd.'s Code Division Multiple Access network in Beijing, China.Andrew supplied base station antennas, coaxial cables, connectors and accessories for all the base...
ESPOO, Finland-In Nokia's continued push to focus on new product development, the company has sold its monitor manufacturing unit in Pecs, Hungary, to Elcoteq Network Corp.The deal, announced by Nokia, follows the company's earlier disclosure that its display manufacturing plant in Salo, Finland, will...
MENLO PARK, Calif.-Customers of the American Automobile Association of Michigan will have a little more help trying to get where they are going. GetThere.com has announced that AAA Michigan will begin using the company's online travel booking system and wireless technology offering AAA customers...
Brightpoint Inc. will continue as the exclusive distributor of Ericsson Mobile Phones in the United States, according to the company. The agreement extends Brightpoint's distribution and sales of Ericsson wireless phones through Dec. 31, 2001, and authorizes Brightpoint to act as a distributor of...
