Regional carriers continued to bleed customers during the third quarter as more competition and evolving networks drove up churn for a number of operators Dobson Communications Corp., SunCom Wireless Holdings Inc. and Rural Cellular Corp. all posted significant customer losses during the quarter, echoing...
Three wireless companies announced dividend payments last week. Qualcomm Inc. announced a quarterly cash dividend of 9 cents per common share payable Jan. 4 to shareholders of record at the close of business Dec. 7. Sprint Nextel Corp. declared fourth-quarter dividends for the company's...
SAN DIEGO-Three wireless companies announced dividend payments this week.Qualcomm Inc. announced a quarterly cash dividend of 9 cents per common share payable Jan. 4, 2006, to shareholders of record at the close of business Dec. 7.Sprint Nextel Corp. declared fourth-quarter dividends for the company's...
With the wireless industry's six largest operators now serving more than 90 percent of the country's wireless subscribers, regional players continue to scramble for their pieces of the pie. Many of these carriers have managed to lower their dependence on volatile roaming revenues, but...
The following information includes ratings changes and financial information for wireless companies announced this week by investment-banking and financial-services firms.
VeriSign Inc. announced an agreement with Rural Cellular Corp., which operates in the Midwest, Northeast, Northwest and Southern regions, to provide VeriSign's wireless billing service for RCC's GSM customers.RCC already uses several VeriSign products, including billing and customer management solutions, the vendor said. Terms...
Independent regional operators posted mixed second-quarter results that in most cases included sagging customer growth, but increased revenue per subscriber bolstered by growing wireless data usage. Recently strengthened Alltel Corp., which closed its acquisition of Western Wireless Corp., was a prime example. The industry's...
Citing both technology and service-related issues, Rural Cellular Corp. said it lost 9,992 customers during the second quarter, compared with a gain of 8,144 customers during the second quarter of 2004. The carrier attributed the decline to issues encountered during the commercial introduction of...
ALEXANDRIA, Minn.-Rural Cellular Corp. announced that its board of directors has determined not to declare the quarterly dividend payable on its 11.375-percent senior exchangeable preferred stock and its 12.25-percent junior exchangeable preferred stock. These dividends would have been payable in cash Aug. 15 to...
ALEXANDRIA, Minn.-Rural Cellular Corp. reported that its customer relationship management and billing managed services agreement with Amdocs Software Systems Ltd. initiated in early 2004 was mutually terminated late last week.Rural Cellular said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the termination was based...
ALEXANDRIA, Minn.-Rural Cellular Corp. elected two new members to its board of directors.James V. Continenza and Jacques Leduc were elected to the board at the company's 2005 annual shareholders meeting by holders of the company's 11.375-percent senior exchangeable preferred stock.Continenza most recently was president,...
With three months of financial and operational performance on the books, 2005 is setting up as another strong year for the wireless industry. Analysts noted that first-quarter results have shown a substantial year-over-year improvement in customer growth along with improving churn and margin performances...
ALEXANDRIA, Minn.-Rural Cellular Corp. reported mixed first-quarter results showing a modest increase in revenues offset by increased net losses and continued net customer losses, which the carrier attributed to network issues associated with technology migration plans.Total revenues for the first quarter increased slightly from...
Infrastructure giant L.M. Ericsson announced it will put the brakes on its CDMA business, a move that coincides with the shuttering of its CDMA headquarters in San Diego. Ericsson said it will no longer seek out new CDMA deals and instead will focus on...
Infrastructure giant Ericsson announced it will put the brakes on its CDMA business and will not seek any new customers. The company will instead focus on its line-up of existing CDMA carriers."We will not aggressively look for any new customers," said Ericsson spokeswoman Pia...
Rural wireless provider Midwest Wireless reported a pair of BREW-hosting agreements with California-based Golden State Cellular and Tennessee-based Eloqui Wireless. The agreements call for Midwest to share its existing BREW systems and servers with Golden State and Eloqui so the operators can offer similar...
LAS VEGAS-One Voice Technologies Inc. said Rural Cellular Corp. will test its MobileVoice service. The MobileVoice service includes voice dialing, group conference calling, reading and sending e-mails, voice-to-text short message service messaging and voice-driven phone book applications, said One Voice.
ALEXANDRIA, Minn.-Rural Cellular Corp. said it lost 8,000 postpaid subscribers during the final three months of last year. The carrier said the drop reflected the transition stage of its network that includes both technology upgrades and market swaps. Rural Cellular noted that it ended...
The U.S. carrier market appears to be headed for further constriction on news that regional carrier Alltel Corp. is in advanced negotiations to buy Western Wireless Corp. for $4 billion. The report follows Cingular Wireless L.L.C.'s purchase of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Sprint...
The wide ranging world of wireless roaming has fallen on deaf ears when it comes to CDMA2000 1x data services. Most U.S. operators have yet to sign agreements that would allow customers to continue to access their data services when using a competitor's network....
Tier-two wireless carriers reported diverse second-quarter financials. Dobson Communications Corp., the nation's ninth largest carrier, saw its stock plunge on full-year guidance, while No. 10 Leap improved its metrics as it gets closer to emerging from bankruptcy protection. Dobson reported mixed operating and financial...
ALEXANDRIA, Minn.-Rural Cellular Corp. said it will invest $160 million on next-generation upgrades during the next two years to increase network quality and coverage.The company plans to offer new entertainment applications and communications services after adding new network technologies and "a significant number" of...
It appears that location-based service applications for finding local coffee shops, specialty stores, banks and the like have fallen short in intriguing consumers in the United States. But industry contends that a market-albeit one far more practical and far less sexy than previous expectations-for...
Wireless gear supplier L.M. Ericsson announced a series of contracts around the world, assuring its place as the world's premier infrastructure player.In the context of the CommunicAsia conference in Singapore, Ericsson Chief Executive Officer Carl-Henric Svanberg emphasized the increasing importance of hosting services among...
