ROME-Telecom Italia said it increased its stake in Entel in Chile from 25.63 percent to 54.76 percent. Entel owns 100 percent of Entel PCS, a mobile operator in Chile. Entel Chile also operates a fixed-line network.Chile said it purchased the stakes held in Entel...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-2000 marked the year GSM fully made its way into the Latin American market.The first cellular networks were installed in Latin America during the late 1980s, with AMPS analog technology. Later, the majority migrated to TDMA and CDMA equipment, following the Northern...
NEW DELHI, India-Several leading GSM operators in the Asian region have announced plans for migration to 2.5-generation (2.5G) services during 2001. Many of them hope to roll out commercial General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) services during the year, but mass expansion of the new...
Only a year ago, prospects for the GSM standard in Latin America seemed dim. At that time, Chile's Entel PCS and Venezuela's rural operator Infonet were the only operators offering GSM-based services in Latin America, and only a handful of other operators in Bolivia...
MOSCOW-Major Russian Moscow-based carriers recently have been expanding their short message service (SMS) capacities to meet the demand of an anticipated boom. However, experts fear the expected SMS incomes will hardly compensate for the average revenue per user (ARPU) decrease registered last year.Mobile TeleSystems...
DENVER, United States-With AT&T Wireless Services' announcement it will overlay its existing TDMA-based network with a GSM network supporting General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), the pressure is on other TDMA carriers, specifically the largest U.S.-based TDMA carrier Cingular Wireless, as to its future technology...
LONDON-The wireless sector in the Middle East continues to grow, with several developments that took place during the last half of 2000. The region saw a number of new mobile operators begin services, as well as announcements of contracts for cellular infrastructure expansion.Chief among...
LISBON, Portugal-Portugal Telecom (PT) announced its Brazilian cellular subsidiary, Telesp Celular Participacoes (TCP), acquired 49 percent of the common shares and 100 percent of the preferred shares of mobile operator Global Telecom. TCP purchased the stake from holding companies belonging to Japan's DDI, ITX...
TOKYO-KDDI, the sole cdmaOne operator in Japan, has been expanding its international roaming services, fully using its universally standardized cdmaOne technology.In January, KDDI launched international roaming services in Canada in cooperation with Telus Mobility, a major Canadian carrier. Canada will become the fifth country...
PRAGUE, Czech Republic-During the 11 years since the fall of communism in Central Europe, the region's countries have rapidly embraced mobile telephony, including the ubiquitous GSM networks now blanketing the region. And operators are beginning to plan for next-generation mobile telephony in countries where...
The millennium is off to a good start for Vodafone Group.The U.K.-based carrier began 2000 with a hostile takeover of Mannesmann, parent of its rival Orange, and continued with a spending spree for third-generation (3G) licenses across Europe. The year also marked the finalization...
HONG KONG-"Third-generation services are here," proclaimed the advertisements from Qualcomm at International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom Asia 2000. "The wait is over." Korea's SK Telecom was the first operator to deploycdma2000, noted Terry Yen, Asia Pacific director of the CDMA Development Group. SK Telecom...
GENEVA-Europe is set to witness an explosion in the number of mobile base stations, as operators gear up for the imminent launch of third-generation (3G) services in early 2002.A report issued by the Strategis Group's United Kingdom office predicts operators in the continent's 15...
Dear Editor: I have found your Global Wireless news to be quite edifying. I, however, must correct you on the "First Caribbean CPP provider emerges" article in the September-October 2000, volume 3, number 5 issue.I was quite disappointed in reading, "Trinidad and Tobago ... has...
TOKYO-NTT DoCoMo has been gearing up its global strategy, concluding one investment agreement after another. Since December 1999, it has invested in carriers in Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Britain.At the end of November 2000, DoCoMo announced another big deal with a U.S. carrier,...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-Despite the promotional efforts of developers and mobile operators, the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) was roundly condemned by industry observers as being "unfit for purpose" during most of last year. The technology suffered from all the ills associated with pushing an unstable...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden-Under a new three-year agreement, Ericsson will supply its third-generation UMTS radio access network equipment and services to Finnish operator Sonera.The services will run on top of the optical high-speed Internet protocol backbone network Ericsson put in for Sonera. Ericsson said this is...
CHINAChina Mobile Communications Corp. awarded Motorola Inc. a GPRS network supply contract to cover an estimated 110,000 subscribers in four Chinese cities. China Mobile, a GSM operator, will use the "always on, always connected" GPRS feature with data applications like e-commerce, e-mail and data...
OSLO, Norway-Telenor said it would exercise its option to sell its 10-percent stake in German operator Viag Interkom GmbH to British Telecommunications plc. The transaction, expected to be completed in January 2001, is worth more than $2.26 billion.Telenor said the payment will mainly go...
BelgiumKPN Mobile will acquire 50 percent of Belgian operator KPN Orange Belgium from France Telecom for US$443.5 million, giving KPN 100-percent ownership. France Telecom had to divest its KPN Orange ownership, which it acquired through its acquisition of Orange plc earlier this year, to...
The talk throughout 2000 centered on third-generation (3G) technology-its high costs, functionality, risks and mostly its promise. But 3G has different meanings in different circles. Because 3G is something that is not yet officially tangible, a concrete definition is not easy to come by.The...
BEIJING-China's mobile communications market made big strides forward during 2000. The number of GSM subscribers leapt to more than 70 million, with a penetration rate of 5.5 percent.China Unicom debuted on the stock market and reconfirmed its intention to build out a CDMA network....
CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa.-Wireless operator UbiquiTel Inc., a Sprint PCS Network Partner, expanded its coverage area along the Interstate 90 corridor from Spokane, Wash., to east of Moses Lake, Wash., and Sandpoint, Idaho.UbiquiTel currently serves midsize and smaller markets in the Western and Midwestern United States,...
At the end of each year, the RCR Wireless News editorial staff looks back on the new 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 2000 in chronological...
