TOKYO—Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. announced its cell phone unit will close a Great Britain-based plant in an effort to further reduce costs by moving production to China and Eastern Europe.The Thatcham plant employs about 350 people and its closure follows the closure of another...
TOKYO-Wireless local area network (WLAN) service targeting the retail and travel industries is set to expand quickly in Japan. Some market watchers said that once the WLAN business takes off, it might be a rival for cellular phone service and may rob the cellular...
NEW DELHI, India-The Thai cellular market witnessed rapid growth and intense competition during 2001. Subscriber numbers reached a landmark, crossing fixed-line subscriber numbers much earlier than expected. Tariffs are decreasing, and value-added services are generating huge revenues for operators. Next-generation services like General Packet...
Qualcomm has been looking for a European opening for its CDMA technology for some time. But so far, the technology has been effectively shut out in the region, other than a few CDMA fixed-wireless networks, mainly in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.The...
TORONTO-As the handset manufacturing business gets tougher because of declining demand, more phone makers are looking at joint ventures as their economic salvation and perhaps their best strategy to catch number-one handset supplier Nokia. In October, after much fanfare, Ericsson and Sony launched a...
LONDON-The introduction of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) in Sweden and NTT DoCoMo's launch of third-generation (3G) services has set the scene for a new approach to mobile devices, both by operators and end users. The market for mobile devices and wireless access is...
A new study by marketing research firm BWCS claimed that more than 90 percent of U.K. business travelers with laptops are interested in using wireless local area network (WLAN) services at airports, while 40 percent of those surveyed said they have no interest in...
WOODBURY, New York—Taiwan Cellular Corporation (TCC) selected Comverse to provide its Intelligent Short Messaging Service Center to Taiwan Cellular's 6.4 million subscribers."Our agreement with TCC underscores the expansion of Comverse's enhanced services market success in the Asia-Pacific region, including SMS," said Zeev Bregman, chief...
PARIS—Telfort and Postbank in Norway have selected SchlumbergerSema's Subscriber Wireless Application Protocol Identify Module (SWIM) card to provide public key infrastructure for their m-banking service. The service, which launched earlier this year, has more than 500,000 users.The Simera e-motion SWIM card will allow customers...
SCHAUMBURG, Ill.—Motorola Inc. has licensed it iTAP intelligent keypad text entry technology to Acer Communications and Multimedia Inc.Acer said it will use iTAP technology, which it licensed for three years, in the mobile phones it develops for mobile handset vendors, including Motorola, to simplify...
WOODBURY, N.Y.—Taiwan Cellular Corp. selected Comverse, a unit of Comverse Technology Inc., to provide its Intelligent Short Messaging Service Center to Taiwan Cellular's 6.4 million subscribers."Our agreement with TCC underscores the expansion of Comverse's enhanced services market success in the Asia-Pacific region, including SMS,"...
WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission said it received more than 3,000 complaints from wireless users the past three months, the second highest total of all telecom sectors regulated by the agency.The data, included in the first of what will be quarterly reports, covers billing, rates,...
NEW YORK—Zingy.com, a web portal that allows Nokia mobile phone users to personalize their phones and communicate through text messaging, has officially launched. "Wireless phones aren't just tech toys anymore," explained Fabrice Grinda, Zingy's founder. "They're a lifestyle accessory, an ID badge, a fashion...
The wireless data industry started as a dream and a nationwide network almost 30 years ago.As the years slowly passed and people began to recognize the value of mobile data, more and more trucking managers jumped on board to wirelessly track their vehicles,...
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, United States-AT&T Wireless announced an agreement with Google to provide subscribers with Internet-ready mobile phones direct access to Google's search engine.The Google service, available to AT&T Digital PocketNet Service Premium Plan customers, automatically converts HTML Web pages for Wireless Application Protocol...
BEIJING-The U.S. subsidiary of China's largest electric meter producer, the Holley Group based in the eastern province of Zhejiang, has acquired the design operations for CDMA mobile phones from Philips Semiconductors, a division of Holland's Philips Electronics.Holley Communications USA plans to provide chip design...
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, United States-A broad spectrum of technology companies, including Cisco Systems, Comverse, Intel, Microsoft, Philips Speech Processing and SpeechWorks International, agreed to form a forum to develop a platform-free standard for multimodal and telephony-enabled access to information, applications and Web services for...
NEW YORK—The Bluetooth Special Interest Group Inc.'s Car Working Group released a definition for how Bluetooth wireless technology will enable hands-free use of mobile phones in automobiles as part of its Hands-Free Profile, which are expected to be adopted by its membership.Prototypes using the...
HELSINKI, Finland—Vattenfall and Swedish power sector ally Birka Energi have reached a preliminary agreement to use their combined electricity systems as springboards to build new stations for third-generation (3G) networks, offering masts and antennae, as well as maintenance and electric power to telecom operators....
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—According to research firm Credit Suisse First Boston and other published reports, personal digital assistant maker Handspring Inc. on Monday will unveil its highly anticipated integrated wireless device.The device will combine PDA organizer functions with mobile phone and wireless Internet browsing capabilities.Company...
STAMFORD, Connecticut, United States—Respondents in a study conducted by Gartner said an average of 49.5 percent of their cellular phone calls are placed from a car while driving, although this number has decreased during the past few years as handheld phones have become more...
HELSINKI, Finland—Danish competition officials, reacting to confidential information of cartel arrangements within the mobile telephone sector, have staged raids on the head offices of the country's largest mobile phone operators, including TDC, Orange, Sonofon and Telia Danmark. Regulators confirmed they are investigating claims that...
MANSFIELD, Vt.—The EMR Network asked the Federal Communications Commission to launch a rulemaking to re-examine radiation safety guidelines for mobile phones and base stations. "The pertinent regulations were revised in 1996-97. However, the supporting scientific and medical studies are no more recent than 1985....
HELSINKI, Finland—Nokia announced plans for a wide-ranging test of mobile commerce products and services, moves that include making secure credit card payments using a mobile phone wallet application.Nokia is teaming with IBM, Visa International, local banking and technology companies and Finnish mobile operator Radiolinja...
