BANGALORE, India-Losing more than US$5 million per month, paging service providers in India face a grim situation. The paging industry has halved its service penetration targets from 6 million pagers by the turn of century to 3 million, despite an impressive 25-percent growth rate...
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-High on the agenda of issues raised by African ministers at Africa Telecom '98 held here in May was using satellite technology for boosting African economies and low telephone-penetration rates.Africa presents an ideal candidate for Mobile Satellite Services (MSS). The continent is...
BOSTON-Cellular and personal communications services have entered the mainstream U.S. market in earnest, with a presence in 35 percent of all households in the nation, according to the Yankee Group's recently released "Mobile User Survey." The wireless penetration rate is up 8 percentage points...
After more than seven years of investigation and litigation, Frequency Electronics Inc. has settled all outstanding criminal and civil cases brought against it by the U.S. government with a guilty plea to one count of filing a false statement and payments totaling $8 million.Going...
INDIANAPOLIS-Brightpoint Inc., a distribution and value-added logistics services provider to the wireless communications industry, today announced the following changes to its financial management team: Thomas Butler joined Brightpoint as the vice president, North American controller. Since 1986, Butler had been working with Eli Lilly and...
NEW YORK-Silvio Scaglia, chief executive officer of Omnitel Pronto Italia S.p.A., called it the "What we are doing today that others will do tomorrow" plan.The Italian carrier has executed a series of steps to further its goal of making its mobile telecommunications services a...
NEW YORK-After receiving "Big Daddy" T-shirts from BT Alex. Brown Inc. telecommunications analyst Jeffrey L. Hines June 10, top executives of four of the world's largest wireless carriers offered an expansive vision of their companies and their industry."There are accelerating growth rates in all...
NEW YORK-BEA Systems Inc., a major player in providing mission-critical middleware solutions, announced BEA M3, which it said is the first and only production-ready Object Transaction Manager.Among other things, M3 will make it "easier for carriers who want to bundle services," said Frederick A....
Multifrequency paging launched in ChinaMotorola Inc. announced a FLEX multifrequency paging network was launched in the Guangxi Zhuang province of China-the first of seven provincial Motorola networks planned to go into operation this year.Since the launch of China Telecom's nationwide paging network in 1997,...
Arch Communications Group Inc. announced a major restructuring plan for its U.S. business units-which includes cutting about 10 percent of its 2,800-strong work force-and initiated a new capital structure plan aimed at strengthening the company's financial flexibility for future growth.The work-force reduction is a...
NEW YORK-Wireless telephony providers are hemorrhaging revenues from organized activity by criminals drawn to the low risk and easy money of subscription fraud.Thieves are exploiting a particularly lucrative window of opportunity right now, one that is likely to remain open for a few years....
Some truths are not self evident, but every once in a while, the dawn's early light shines through. Truth has no place in this city of self-serving factoids, where winning and whining make moral relativism king.Here, they are engaged in a folly of a...
SAN JOSE, Calif.-LG Information and Communications Ltd. will develop prototype handsets for widespread testing of SnapTrack's enhanced 911 solution, which is designed to meet the Federal Communications Commission mandate for wireless E-911 location services, said SnapTrack.LGIC joined seven Code Division Multiple Access wireless carriers-AirTouch...
The announced merger of SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp. has raised speculation there may be another paging unit on the sale block sometime soon.SBC will be the controlling company after the merger. Given SBC's lack of any real paging interests in the past,...
SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp. last week announced a stock-for-stock merger agreement valued at about $62 billion that would give the combined company a local and wireless presence in the West, Southwest, Midwest and parts of the Northeast.The companies seemed to place an...
For the cellular industry, it's the morning after. Sort of.The industry was deregulated significantly in 1993, a high mark for the powerful cellular lobby in Washington, D.C. Life was good. Congress had put states out to pasture. Growth was running as high as 40...
NEW YORK-Pathnet Inc. hopes to raise $100 million by going public to help finance its goal of becoming a national carrier's carrier in smaller markets by upgrading existing wireless infrastructure to develop a synchronous optical network (SONET) system.Pathnet intends to provide a high-capacity, dedicated...
WASHINGTON-U.S. economic sanctions slapped on India last week for nuclear testing are expected to have a relatively minor, short-term impact on wireless investment in that populous emerging market. But the prospect of a nuclear arms race in Asia combined with political unrest in Indonesia...
DALLAS-Aeris Communications Inc. and Orbcomm Canada Inc. announced an agreement to integrate their respective MicroBurst and Orbcomm services for hybrid wireless data and messaging products and services in Canada.The combined solution will combine MicroBurst's coverage in the Rogers Cantel cellular network in Canada with...
Creativity is becoming key for wireless carriers trying to build out their networks amidst resistance from local municipalities that in some cases have gone as far as placing moratoria on new tower sites.The wireless industry is facing hundreds of moratoria in communities concerned about...
NEW YORK-Orange plc outshined the other major mobile network providers in the United Kingdom, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 1998 U.K. Mobile Customer Satisfaction Study.Orange's overall satisfaction rankings were fueled by top scores in key areas, including corporate capabilities, call quality and...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission's long-awaited decision on what should happen with low-power private wireless systems during refarming has been delayed by concerns over interference with heart monitors.The Land Mobile Communications Council submitted a plan last June to deal with low-power systems but operators of...
DALLAS-Chatham Technologies Inc., a Dallas-based manufacturer of custom enclosures for sale to original equipment manufacturers in the communications and electronic equipment business, opened a regional office in Sao Paulo, Brazil.The new facility will serve as the base of Chatham's South American business development activities,...
