OXFORD, United Kingdom-The "Year 2000" problem has become a priority item on the agenda of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), reflecting the reality that the global network is only as strong as its weakest link. In the telecommunications sector, tackling the Year 2000 problem,...
LONDON-The GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) market in Egypt took a positive turn at the beginning of the year with an invitation for bids to build and operate a second mobile network. Now as the year is ending, cellular competition is set to...
Nippon Ido Tsushin Corp. (IDO) announced it will stop its analog cellular service based on the NTT standard as of the end of March 1999 and instead will use the 6.5 MHz band for cdmaOne digital service. The company, which currently has 16,000 analog...
The Argentine government, in an attempt to proceed with the PCS auctions currently in judicial limbo, is considering selling two PCS licenses each for the northern and southern regions of the country, excluding the greater Buenos Aires area. This maneuvering would speed up the...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-Second-generation cellular has not been an entirely satisfactory experience for the United States. "We pulled up the beaches and said we are Island America," said Tom Wheeler, chief executive officer of the U.S. Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. But since then the wireless...
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam-While other countries in the region continue to liberalize their mobile phone markets, Vietnam will return to a status of near-monopoly by year-end.The merger of the two GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) providers, Mobiphone and Vinaphone, will tighten the...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-The game of musical chairs between telecom operators vying for a stake in the lucrative German market seems to have slowed down. There is now some semblance of stability following the launch of E2, Germany's fourth mobile phone network, at the end...
Telesystem International Wireless Inc., Montreal, announced its French subsidiary, Regiocom S.A., has acquired S3RP, the trunked-radio operations of Bouygues Telecom marketed under the brand name Orbicom, making it the only national trunked-radio operator in France.The acquisition adds about 6,500 subscribers to Dolphin Telecom plc,...
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-Uganda has one of the lowest penetration rates of telephone services in the world. As of July 1995, the Uganda Posts & Telecommunication Corp. (UPTC) had an installed capacity of just under 70,000 lines and approximately 42,000 subscribers. The result is a...
Argentina will adopt calling party pays for cellular as of 1 January. Trunking and paging also are expected to adopt the system in an attempt to develop these markets. The paging sector experienced a significant drop in subscribers as a result of competition with...
BANGALORE, India-After almost a year of service, radio trunking in India is starting to look promising. Once a given-up segment, the industry had 4,000 subscribers nationwide as of March. And of the 27 companies with trunking licenses, 16 have 31 systems commissioned for services...
BANGALORE, India-By the end of December 1997, there were close to 800,000 cellular subscribers in the four metros and 15 telecom circles (roughly equivalent to states) where services so far have been introduced in India. The number of new cellular connections was growing this...
The International Telecommunication Union has yet to decide on the air interface for third-generation mobile phone technology, but many vendors are pushing ahead anyway with GSM-based wideband CDMA technology.The Geneva-based international standards body is mulling through 15 different proposals, the majority based on CDMA...
At a rate of nearly 400,000 new subscriber additions each quarter, U.S.-based Nextel Communications Inc. has been attracting a lot of attention, including from traditional wireless carriers that may try to imitate Nextel's unique Direct Connect dispatch feature.Wireless carriers in the United States have...
AustraliaNorthern Telecom Ltd. announced it will build a turnkey nationwide cdmaOne Code Division Multiple Access wireless network for Telstra Corp., Australia's primary telecommunications provider, in a buildout project valued at more than $200 million. Telstra's decision was much-anticipated in the wireless industry as it...
Germany-based Mannesmann A.G. and Italy's Olivetti last week announced they will launch a joint-venture company, Mannesmann euro.map, to provide cross-border voice and data services using already-existing infrastructure in individual European countries. The new company is set to launch in first-quarter 1999, said Mannesmann.The announcement...
Microcell Telecommunications Inc. said it completed the final phase of its 1998 expansion in Canada with the launch of Fido personal communications services in London, Ontario. The PCS service, operating on the Global System for Mobile communications platform, expands the Fido footprint to 16...
SAO PAULO-BellSouth Corp. announced late last week that its BCP S.A. cellular operation in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has wiped out its 1.8 million-person waiting list for cellular service, signing on in fewer than five months a total of 600,000 of those who originally had...
MELBOURNE, Fla.-AirNet Communications Corp. said it was awarded a contract valued at about $30 million from Carolina PCS to supply the C-block operator with personal communications services equipment. AirNet also plans to assist Carolina PCS with obtaining third-party financing.Phase one of the contract calls...
While Nextel Communications Inc. remains the darling of the wireless industry these days, other specialized mobile radio operators are beginning to build successful businesses on plain old two-way dispatch voice service."There are people that don't need the bells and whistles and want a very...
AustriaKyro Corp.'s Tecnomen Group announced Mobilkom Austria selected it to supply a new messaging system for Mobilkom's Global System for Mobile communications network expansion. The new system will add more than 600,000 voice and fax mailboxes to the Austrian GSM system, the company said....
L.M. Ericsson last week spelled out details of its new strategic direction, which includes an increased focus on Internet technologies to piggyback on its established position in the wireless and wireline telecommunications arenas.The company's new strategic focus stems from a growing demand for wireless...
Italy's Communications Minister Antonio Maccanico was reported in foreign press as saying the country may engage in yet another auction for a fourth mobile phone license, possibly before the end of the year.Maccanico said the growth rate for the mobile phone industry in Italy...
Changing times are requiring some infrastructure vendors to reorganize their businesses and better align themselves with their customers.Siemens AG of Germany is the latest vendor to realize this. The company's New York subsidiary, Siemens Corp., announced last week three new business units in the...
