The head of Philips Consumer Communications quit in late August amidst the company's announcement it doesn't expect to break even this year.PCC President and Chief Executive Officer Mike McTighe resigned from those positions effective 1 October.When Lucent Technologies Inc. and Philips Electronics N.V. hatched...
Across most of the world's regions, carriers and analysts are claiming prepaid cellular a resounding success. Along with calling party pays, it is considered one of the leading contributors to current subscriber growth.Some carriers now are getting more than half of new subscribers through...
Compared with defining-and keeping-the same wireless strategy over the years, gambling is beginning to look like a sound way to sock some money away for retirement.In today's frenetic telecom environment, it increasingly is difficult to decide which strategy to pursue.Should a telecom carrier try...
President Clinton's rapid-fire retaliation against terrorists suspected of bombing two U.S. embassies Aug. 7 in Africa, all cynicism aside, is in a broad sense more about invaluable eavesdropping by law enforcement than about Monica. Really.Yankee haters in Afghanistan and Sudan can explain away the...
I saw two stories over the news wire this week that made me wonder if wireless is heading the way of smoking as far as being labeled a public nuisance.The first story was about how British Railways is planning to install a special metal-coating...
Embattled Clinton Democrats, like FCC Chairman Bill Kennard and the First Family itself, know they've got a friend in Cape Cod and the islands, where I just returned from vacation with my family.There, you can see bumper stickers that read, `Friends of WFCC'-it's an...
As part of this week's paging special report, RCR explores people's love-hate relationship with technology. It's an interesting read, and it certainly has caused me to wonder if the wireless industry is shifting from a time when it was perceived solely in a positive...
Well, it is August in the Nation's Capital and like almost everyone else (we'll get to that in a moment), Bureau Chief Jeffrey Silva, who usually occupies this space, is on vacation.Washington in August is a pretty dull place (although this year could be...
As PCS '98 approaches, RCR editorial staffers are bracing themselves for an onslaught of press releases ranging in news value from important to the less-important.A print journalist for 20 years, I also spent five years doing industrial public relations for Fortune 100 multinationals.Let me...
Eloquent and elaborate quotes with references to Winston Churchill, the 1969 presidential inauguration and the devil himself spewed forth from press releases last Wednesday as three wireless associations praised the joint agreement between local governments and the wireless industry on antenna-siting moratoria.The Personal Communications...
In this Clintonian Age of Relativity, there is always-for everyone here-a way out: denial. Having an extramarital affair with a girl your twenty-something daughter's age. Deny it. Soliciting campaign contributions from a Buddhist temple or from the White House. Deny it. Call it something else,...
Cramming, slamming, telemarketing, annoying ...Anymore when my home phone rings I am ready to repel, poised to protect. As a result, I recently had a conversation that went something like this: Hello Ms. Eichner this is Bob with Dodge City Days.We don't want to buy...
Some U.S. GSM and TDMA operators are irked at Qualcomm Inc. and its lobbying efforts within the U.S. government to frame the third-generation issue as a trade issue with Europe.They say that while Qualcomm is urging the State Department to take action against Europe...
This week the wireless industry at last understood the pace of summer. Only 10 or so breaking news events designed to change the face of the industry as we see it today happened.With that in mind, I finally managed to organize the pile of...
On the subject of funding fiascoes-E911, cancer research, CALEA, school and library Net links, etc.-someone tell President Clinton that it's not just drug czar Barry McCaffrey who needs money for a Madison Avenue make over.The FBI and National Park Service could benefit from a...
Turns out there is not one but two million-dollar men in the Portals fiasco.Subpoenaed documents provided to congressional investigators by Tennessee developer Franklin Haney last week supposedly reveal that former Tennessee senator Jim Sasser, before becoming U.S. ambassador to China, pocketed $1 million for...
The Washington Times last week reported China's new rocket stage booster developed for Motorola Inc.'s Iridium project created a technology bridge that could help the Chinese deploy multiple warheads on strategic missiles, according to a classified Air Force intelligence report.Loral Corp. and Hughes Corp....
I was once told that Dallas has such a great highway system because during the oil bust in the mid '80s, business people ruled the local government bodies and did whatever was necessary (build roads) to help locate business in the economically depressed city.While...
With only a month before oral arguments, challengers to the FCC's new RF exposure standard managed to avoid imploding last week. Just barely.It all started a couple weeks ago when Cellular Phone Taskforce President Arthur Firstenberg accused James Hobson, a D.C. lawyer for the...
WASHINGTON-It is Congress, not the Federal Communications Commission, that makes telecom policy, according to one of the new FCC commissioners, Harold Furchtgott-Roth. The FCC "must simply follow the law as it is written by Congress in developing telecommunications regulation. We don't go outside of...
The proposed combination of SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp. could create a big obstacle to the implementation of calling-party-pays service in the United States.Speaking last month at a luncheon sponsored by Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp., Sam Ginn, chairman and chief executive...
More than one person in the wireless industry has referred to the government's auction of C-block personal communications services licenses as a bad dream. Now, it seems, the Federal Communications Commission agrees.And, like with all nightmares, the commission is trying to shake it off...
Could Japan, America's venerable trade nemesis, be the key to future global economic stability generally and the wireless revolution specifically?Without doubt.The Clinton administration believes it has Japan over a barrel on trade now that the Asian financial crisis has that region in its grip....
OXFORD, United Kingdom-The imminent explosion of the mobile data market has been like a constant companion for the past 12 years. The technology driving this supposed market expansion may have changed over time, but the predicted boom has always been present, always just about...
