WASHINGTON-Congress is slowly backtracking on spectrum auctions as a source of revenue in the bipartisan balanced budget plan, a retreat spurred by recent falling wireless license prices and financial troubles among companies that many believe spent too much for access to the airwaves early...
Affordable Message Center is introducing Simplicity One today, a prepaid one-number service that offers users protection from over-calls on their cellular phone bill."You are protecting your cellular number," explained Alexander Ott, president of Next Century Communications Inc., AMC's parent. "No other (one-number) service does...
Coherent Communications Systems Corp. announced its chief financial officer, Michael Gendron, has left the company to pursue other interests. Gendron's responsibilities will be assumed by Joan Cominski, corporate controller, while the company searches for a new CFO.Cellexis International Inc. promoted Gary Paisley to president...
A class action lawsuit charging Los Angeles cellular carriers with price fixing is set to go to trial July 7 in Orange County Superior Court, nearly four years after it was filed.Arthur Garabedian, who sells cellular phones and service for cellular resellers and agents...
Aerial Communications Inc. launched digital personal communications services in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market. Aerial service initially will be available to the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area as well as nearby St. Cloud, Minn., and Menomonie, Wis. At launch, Aerial will cover nearly 60 percent...
MIAMI-TracFone, a prepaid cellular phone and airtime service marketed by Topp Telecom Inc., will be available in the New York metropolitan area and throughout Southern California at area Radio Shack outlets.Cellular service for the pay-as-you-go phone is provided by Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile for...
CEDAR KNOLLS, N.J.-Omnipoint Communications Services Inc., a subsidiary of Omnipoint Corp., signed a retail sales agreement with Computer City, a national computer chain.According to the agreement, Computer City stores in Omnipoint markets will carry Omnipoint's personal communications services handsets and products. Omnipoint said it...
Price is an important element of competition for paging carriers, but most industry insiders say features, quality of service and how a service meets a customer's specific needs determine value.The retail price for numeric service has dropped in many markets, but the reductions are...
FREEHOLD, N.J.-Paging Partners Corp. and Suburban Cable Corp. signed an agreement to jointly market radio paging services through a new division, Suburban Paging, to Suburban's 1.2 million subscribers.Headquartered in Oaks, Pa., Suburban Cable provides basic, expanded and pay-per-view services to areas in Pennsylvania, Delaware...
LITTLE CHUTE, Wis.-Airadigm Communications Inc. is launching service in Green Bay, Wis., and opening a retail store in the Bay Park Square Mall.Airadigm's service is branded Einstein PCS. The Little Chute-based company said in March it was the first C-block personal communications services operator...
AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Bloomberg Financial Markets announced they will begin offering financial news and market updates to users of AT&T's PocketNet phone this summer.Information available from Bloomberg will include daily financial, general and company news and market index performance including percentage change,...
DENVER-Western Wireless Corp. said it plans to launch personal communications services based on Global System for Mobile communications technology May 1 in Denver. The company plans to open several VoiceStream Wireless retail outlets along the Front Range.Western Wireless will compete with digital cellular carriers...
When the federal government offered spectrum auction license incentives to women, minorities, small businesses and rural telephone companies a few years ago, Steve Neely didn't bite.Though a die-hard entrepreneur like his father, a role model who used to own and operate 26 Shell gas...
Standard Telecom America Inc. said it will start shipping sample quantities of its Nixxo Swing alphanumeric pager in the next few weeks.Swing is Standard Telecom's first alphanumeric pager to hit the market, and at a price of $70 wholesale, it may be the industry's...
DENVER-In concert with the company's previous digital cellular launches, AirTouch Cellular announced it is offering its high-end business users in Denver and Detroit Powerband service."In the past, we have launched new services to business and retail customers simultaneously," said Julie Dexter Berg, executive vice...
CEDAR KNOLLS, N.J.-Omnipoint Communications Inc. announced it has reached a roaming agreement with Eircell, a Global System for Mobile communications provider in Ireland. The launch of service with Eircell is Omnipoint's fifth active international roaming pact in less than three months, the company said.Omnipoint...
IRVING, Texas-Nokia Corp. signed an agreement to supply personal communications services handsets to Pacific Bell Mobile Services. The companies value the agreement at $35 million.The one-year agreement calls for Nokia to begin delivering the phones this month. The phones will be sold as an...
GTE Airfone Inc. announced its in-flight phone service soon will be available using prepaid calling cards, provided by Frontier Communications and GTE Card Services Inc.Kathy Harless, president of GTE Airfone, said the company was receiving increased requests from customers who wanted to use prepaid...
DALLAS-PageMart Wireless Inc. agreed to supply paging products and services to RadioShack. PageMart said it already is shipping products to more than 3,700 RadioShack stores, which will begin selling pagers nationwide during the second quarter."RadioShack sells pagers in more outlets than any other national...
Xypoint Corp. named Jim Thornton chief financial officer with responsibility for all accounting, administration, human resources, risk management and treasury functions. Prior to joining the company, Thornton was president and chief executive officer of Ventana Corp. Before that he was president of finance and...
Smith Micro Software Inc. introduced HotPage 2.0, a wireless messaging software that provides message management and transmission to alphanumeric and numeric pagers. The new version supports Windows 95 and Windows NT personal computers that run Exchange, Windows Messaging or Microsoft Outlook platforms.When subscribers to...
Marketing may be everything.The technical properties of cellular and personal communications services-some similar, some different-balance out when vying for customers. How carriers decide to exploit technical advantages to win customers is another issue."PCS carriers are making a conscious decision to go after certain types...
NEW YORK-"Why pay for cellular phone service if you only want it for emergency use?"That's the advertising slogan and the business concept for SOS Wireless Communications Inc., an Irvine, Calif., company that began selling its SOS Phone nationwide late last year.The handset, which runs...
"This is a fight for the total telecommunication system, and we're not going to play defense," said John E. Rooney from his new office as president of Ameritech Consumer Services.Rooney has been president of Ameritech Cellular and Paging since 1992. But a recent, rapid...
