WASINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission today authorized mobile satellite service providers the flexibility to integrate ground-based transmitters into their operations, but it also reallocated 30 megahertz from the troubled satellite sector to the mobile phone industry for third generation wireless services. The FCC will seek...
WASHINGTON-Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association President Thomas Wheeler today warned Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell that allowing mobile satellite service operators to operate land-band transmitters could cause interference to mobile phone handsets in the personal communications services band."We cannot rob Peter in order...
WASHINGTON-It would be nice to say this policy or that technology will shape the direction of the wireless industry in 2003. But neither industry nor official Washington has that luxury. Geopolitics could come to color the wireless world to a far greater extent than...
As one of the most challenging years in telecom history winds down, the wireless sector faces a variety of threats from within and outside the industry.Which threats will prove to be mere specters and which ones turn out to be true wolves remains to...
McCain urges auction for MSS spectrumWASHINGTON-The wireless industry got some powerful support Dec. 20 in its quest to have the Federal Communications Commission auction off spectrum in the 2 GHz band currently set aside for mobile satellite services."Congress has mandated that FCC spectrum...
WASHINGTON-It would be nice to say this policy or that technology will shape the direction of the wireless industry in 2003. But neither industry nor official Washington has that luxury. Geopolitics could come to color the wireless world to a far greater extent than...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association on Dec. 17 urged the Federal Communications Commission to either auction off spectrum in the 2 GHz band currently set aside for mobile satellite services or go slow in allowing MSS operators the opportunity to offer ancillary terrestrial...
WASHINGTON-Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) have asked the General Accounting Office to conduct a prompt review of the Pentagon's commercial satellite procurement practices. The two lawmakers, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, appear to be concerned about the Department of...
WASHINGTON-Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association President Thomas Wheeler today urged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell to auction spectrum of financially troubled mobile satellite service providers.The FCC is expected to rule in January whether to allow Craig McCaw's ICO Global Communications and other MSS...
RESTON, Va.-Wireless data carrier Motient Corp. announced it is in talks with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the accounting of several business deals in 2000, and whether the company will have to restate is financial results in relation to the deals.Motient said it...
SAN JOSE, California, United States-Globalstar said it reduced prices by up to 75 percent for its registered users in Canada. The announcement comes one week after the mobile satellite services provider announced similar price reductions in the United States and the Caribbean.Under the new...
SAN JOSE, Calif.-Globalstar announced five new pricing plans that bring the costs of satellite telephone services closer to the costs of cellular. The new price plans, which include monthly access and voice or data minutes are: $34.95 for 30 minutes; $49.95 for 120 minutes;...
MEBOURNE, Australia-The Australian government has kicked off its satellite phone subsidy scheme in response to the telecommunications service inquiry, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Senator Richard Alston announced. Australians living in rural or remote areas of the country "beyond terrestrial mobile-phone...
SAN JOSE, Calif.-Globalstar awarded a contract to Space Systems/Loral for the design and future construction of its 2 GHz satellite system, the company said.Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.Several mobile satellite carriers, including Globalstar, Iridium L.L.C. and New ICO, had until this...
MELBOURNE, Australia—Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. signed a deal with Iridium Satellite L.L.C. to become a service provider, Iridium said.SingTel will focus on delivering Iridium mobile satellite services to commercial customers, including shipping, forestry, mining and aeronautical companies.
LONDON—Inmarsat Ltd., a mobile satellite communications provider, began offering to corporate jet passengers April 10 its new "Swift64" service, which provides data speeds of up to 64 kilobits per second for access to Internet-based applications. Later this year, Inmarsat will add mobile packet data...
NEW DELHI, India—Thuraya mobile satellite services, being offered by Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Company of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), has reached a subscriber base of 32,000 in about 25 countries, within six months of its launch.The subscribers are in Central Asia, the Middle...
JAKARTA, Indonesia—Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (BPPN) decided to sell the assets of Pacific Satellite Nusantara (PSN) and its subsidiary Asian Cellular Satellite (ACeS) to AAA Securities for US$206 million. The two companies entered BPPN because they cannot fulfill their obligations to creditors.The U.S. NASDAQ...
NEW DELHI, India—The regional mobile satellite operator Thuraya Satellite Communications Company has signed a license agreement in Pakistan to provide its dual-mode GSM/satellite telephony services. Pak Telecom, Thuraya's service provider in Pakistan, will offer Thuraya mobile satellite services, including handsets and subscriber identity module...
NEW YORK—Loral Space & Communications said it will pay a $14 million civil fine without admitting guilt as part of a settlement with the Justice Department concerning the firm's involvement in a failed Chinese rocket launch in 1996.Loral, which contracted with a Chinese launch...
WASHINGTON-A Bush administration report due out shortly could hurt Nextel Communications Inc.'s campaign to win government approval of a controversial spectrum realignment plan designed to resolve commercial wireless interference to public safety and business radio systems, a proposal major U.S. industry sectors blasted last...
WASHINGTON-2002 offers the wayward wireless industry a chance to begin to redeem and redefine itself. But it won't be easy, and survival skills will be essential. Indeed, with economic sluggishness persisting here and abroad, the industry is not totally in control of its future....
LONDON—Satellite communications provider Inmarsat said the Asia-Pacific region will be the major driver of demand for satellite services in 2002, following significant market growth during 2001.New vertical markets for mobile satellite communications have emerged in Asia, according to Michael Butler, Inmarsat's managing director."In this...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Ericsson AB says it has been selected by mobile satellite operator Inmarsat Ltd to develop its next-generation core network on a $55 million contract for the company's Broadband Global Area Network scheduled for launch in 2004."Ericsson as a sole supplier for the core...
