Tired of listening to the same dry quarterly conference calls? Try listening to Bob Price, chief executive officer of rural cellular operator Price Communications Corp. He's sure to add some color to your life.Last week, the fiery CEO hammered a stock downgrade from Dillon...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) were thwarted last week in their attempts to attach language to the FCC spending bill that would allow the government to take back licenses from bankrupt operators.The conference committee charged with melding together the House...
GENEVA-Sonera, the Finnish telecommunications operator, announced it plans to enter the wireless portal business. The company said it initially will focus its efforts on Western Europe and the United States, competing head to head with U.S. firms such as Phone.com.Called Sonera Zed, the service...
WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard last week told the House of Representatives' top telecommunications lawmaker, Rep. Thomas Bliley (R-Va.), that a letter signed by the FCC general counsel does not bind either him or the other commissioners to agree to a deal that...
BANGALORE, India-Finally, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has received the Telecom Commission's OK to offer cellular services in 17 cities across the country. With Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL)-an offshoot of DoT- slated to offer services in the two major metros-New Delhi and Mumbai-the combined...
Qualcomm Inc. last week asked the Federal Communications Commission to deny Omnipoint Corp.'s request to transfer its New York personal communications services license to VoiceStream Wireless Corp., a move that clouds the companies' efforts to complete their $1.7 billion merger agreement by this year.Qualcomm,...
WASHINGTON-A cellular provider that wants universal-service subsidies played tug-of-war last week with the incumbent local exchange carriers receiving those funds.The scene was the CEO Summit on Rural Telecommunications sponsored by Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.The summit was moderated by William Kennard,...
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.-BroadVision Inc. announced CellMania.com was the fastest e-commerce site to launch using BroadVision's One-To-One Business Commerce software. Time to market for CellMania.com took seven weeks."The BroadVision One-To-One Business Commerce software is incredibly easy to use and deploy," said Dr. Ronjon Nag, president...
NEW YORK-As the Internet accelerates the globalization of telecommunications, mergers and acquisitions among traditional and nontraditional players have eclipsed initial public offerings as the preferred strategy for retaining competitive advantage."In the United States, the Internet economy generated $301 billion in 1998 and will generate...
DUBLIN, Ireland-The mobile communications market in Eastern Europe offers massive untapped potential for cellular operators and market entrepreneurs. Indeed, some companies have already taken a stake in operators there, expecting exponential subscriber growth like those experienced in countries such as Sweden, Italy and Ireland....
SINGAPORE-After two years of bad debts and line terminations, wireless operators in the economically worst-hit Asian nations of Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia can finally look forward to better times ahead.Analysts say economic recovery combined with the growing acceptance of prepaid will help...
Sprint PCS said when it launches its wireless Web services in late September, customers could have access to the Internet in as fast as five to seven seconds.3Com Corp. is providing a patent-pending network feature called QuickNetConnect to Sprint PCS' network. The technology bypasses...
AirCell Inc. received favorable decisions from the Federal Communications Commission that will enable it to move forward with its air-to-ground communications system, targeted for use by general aviation aircraft and regional airlines.Louisville, Colo.-based AirCell has been developing and testing its technology, which uses existing...
TeleCorp PCSTeleCorp PCS Inc. hired Raul Burgos as vice president and general manager of its Puerto Rican operations. He most recently served as general manager and vice president of operations for Nextel International Inc. in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is a 10-year veteran of...
LAS VEGAS-Chadmoore Wireless Group Inc. announced it has agreed to acquire 16 10-channel 900 MHz wide-area licenses from American Wireless Network Inc.Chadmoore will assume the note payments for the licenses to the Federal Communications Commission and lease all related equipment for them during the...
It stands to reason that if you know how to make mobile phones work, you can shut them down-say, like at gas stations or in airplanes, theaters and hospitals. That's what a few ingenious Motorola Inc. inventors across the Atlantic have in mind with...
CHICAGO-U.S. Cellular announced the national rollout of BillTracker, an electronic billing solution that provides multi-service line and multi-account business customers with immediate access to monthly billing information, and enables them to track wireless service usage and expenses across multiple departments and users.BillTracker also provides...
NEW YORK-It is true billions of people have never made a phone call, but that fact is worthless in determining actual demand for mobile satellite telephony services, according to Larry Alletto, senior managing director of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc."Far more important are the...
WASHINGTON-Even as the National Capital Planning Commission was voting to further delay the siting of two Bell Atlantic Mobile towers in Rock Creek Park, the Senate was voting to override the NCPC.Sen. Thomas A. Daschle, the Democratic leader from South Dakota, attached an amendment...
TOKYO-NTT International Corp. (NTTI), a subsidiary of NTT Corp., promotes overseas telecommunications projects in developing countries using Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding. Since it was founded in 1985 as an operational squad for NTT's overseas business, NTTI has promoted a total of 400...
DUBLIN, Ireland-One of the most common complaints from telecommunications companies competing with former monopoly operators is cross-subsidization by the incumbent, particularly in countries where the incumbent also controls a major cellular operator. However, regulators across Europe have been tackling this issue, and it now...
NCRNCR Corp. introduced a software product that allows carriers to perform event-driven marketing by analyzing customer behavior and predicting a customer's readiness to respond to particular marketing efforts. Called MarketingAgent, the software is part of NCR's Customer Relationship Management Solutions 4.0 portfolio. "Businesses that...
U S West Inc.'s and Global Crossing Ltd.'s marriage announcement last week leaves BellSouth Corp. the only Baby Bell not betrothed in the telecommunications industry."There no longer is a need for a regional Bell operating company or a local exchange carrier because today, we...
WASHINGTON-A House panel probing U.S.-Sino ties is expected this week to release a long-anticipated report that concludes satellite technology transfers and nuclear espionage by China have severely compromised U.S. national security.The release of the report, whose contents began leaking out last week, has been...
