WASHINGTON-Even as wireless carriers begin paying nearly 6 percent of their interstate and international revenues to the federal universal-service fund, they are gearing up on a number of fronts to fight the program.Celpage Inc. said it expects to know by the end of March...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission appears to be preparing to take back 63 personal communications service licenses held by NextWave Telecom Inc.Action could come as early as this week as NextWave is set to go to court for its final reorganization hearing. Objections to NextWave's...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission will auction 30 megahertz of spectrum being made available with the transition to digital TV for advanced fixed and mobile wireless services, but is looking for more advice on what to do with the six megahertz of spectrum set aside...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission expects to continue to set the regulatory agenda for 2000, believing a philosophy of anticipating problems and setting regulation is better than letting the market monitor itself.The FCC is "very quick to point to wireless as an example of competition,...
WASHINGTON-Agreeing with a Federal Communications Commission decision, a federal appeals court has ruled one-way paging carriers are entitled to compensation from local exchange carriers."We will not second-guess the agency," said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Dec. 27."The 9th Circuit's...
The spirit of collaboration among leaders in the paging industry continues to grow as paging carriers and manufacturers have joined in several marketing and technological efforts designed to increase the awareness and robustness of paging technology.The Personal Communications Industry Association's Y2K Task Force said...
Dear Editor: As pointed out by Jeff Silva in his "D.C. Notes" column Nov. 9, many industry players, including the Personal Communications Industry Association, are supportive of additional spectrum for third-generation services worldwide.Representatives from these groups and from the government have expended a great deal...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission will establish a year 2000 "war room" that will be manned from Dec. 30 through the first part of January, depending on what happens when the year, century and millennium switches from 1900 to 2000, the FCC told RCR last...
ALEXANDRIA, Va.-The Personal Communications Industry Association's Paging Technical Committee announced it adopted the Wireless Communication Transport Protocol for immediate implementation in North American messaging networks."WCTP is intended to provide a clean interface between handheld wireless messaging devices and the Internet," said Jay Moskowitz, chief...
WASHINGTON-It went down to the wire, but when all was said and done, the personal communications service licenses won at auction by bankrupt NextWave Telecom Inc. escaped the machinations of balancing the federal budget.White House budget negotiators continually tried to convince the congressional leadership...
ALEXANDRIA, Va.-Eight leading paging companies, in an effort managed by the Personal Communications Industry Association, launched the industry sector's first collaborative advertising campaign with TV and radio spots beginning to air in Fresno, Calif., and Jacksonville, Fla.Designed to communicate the advantages of paging technology,...
The House, over protests from the White House and some congressional Democrats, last week approved legislation to make electronic signatures legal.The measure, which passed by a 356-66 margin, comes as more and more commerce moves to the Internet, which is becoming increasingly accessible by...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association continued its fight to have the spectrum cap removed. In a petition for reconsideration filed last week at the Federal Communications Commission, CTIA said it was patently inappropriate for government to keep the cap in place.The cap says telecom...
WASHINGTON-The private wireless and medical communities will have to wait until next year to find out if the Federal Communications Commission houses wireless medical telemetry service at 1.4 GHz.The FCC probably won't decide where to house medical telemetry service until first-quarter 2000, which again...
WASHINGTON-When it comes to spending money to open doors and change hearts and minds in official Washington, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association is King of the Hill.As a wireless trade association, CTIA is without peer-a lobbying juggernaut. Money appears to be no object. In...
WASHINGTON-In a marked change from the private wireless industry's anti-auction stance, the Industrial Telecommunications Association this week expects to work out details of a proposal that would allow for-profit entities to become band managers of spectrum won at auction.The outlines of the proposal were...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission last week largely affirmed auction-driven 800 MHz specialized mobile radio licensing rules, but made several modifications that drew applause from industry."Our primary issue was reducing channel blocks, and that's good for small business," said Jill Lyon, senior vice president for...
WASHINGTON-The merger train rolled through the Federal Communications Commission last week as the FCC reacted to a number of telecommunications industry-changing mergers.The FCC does not officially review mergers but has to review the transfer of licenses, considered to be a key part of any...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission reached a tentative agreement with state regulators on what type of notification will be heard when a person calls a calling-party-pays wireless subscriber, said Kris Monteith, chief of the policy division of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.It is really a...
Lucent Technologies Inc. will be noticeably absent when the Personal Communications Industry Association kicks off its 2000 showcase next September in Chicago.The infrastructure vendor has told PCIA it plans to stop exhibiting at its future shows in North America, opting instead to invest its...
The wireless industry has yet another trade show under its belt. It's time to sit back and take a deep breath before all hell breaks loose in preparation for the next one.Every year, after every major trade show, the industry collectively wonders whether it...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission "does not know if all required fees are being paid," according to a study released last week by the General Accounting Office at the direction of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations."It is troubling and sadly ironic that the -an...
WASHINGTON-Six House members last week sent a letter to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging consideration of a bill recently passed by the House that would change the digital wiretap grandfather date from Jan. 1, 1995, to June...
WASHINGTON-The Personal Communications Industry Association last week attempted to neutralize legislation to curb antenna siting by telling Congress that consolidation in the tower business will reduce the number of wireless facilities in communities across the country in the future.John Kelly, president of Crown Castle...
