NEW YORK-John T. Stupka, president and chief executive officer of SkyTel Communications Inc., said a BellSouth Wireless Data L.P. advertisement that's been running in the Wall Street Journal, as well as in other newspapers, is misleading but nevertheless welcome.The ad compares SkyTel's messaging service,...
For some time, the paging industry has looked to information services as one possible means to increase revenue, but several technological obstacles have restricted the level of customization required for such services to offer real value.Last week, those obstacles were cleared when 11 paging...
NEW YORK-Wristwatch maker Swatch introduced Swatch the Beep Box-a FLEX-enabled numeric pager shaped in a circle.Customers can buy the round pager, which features a trackball activation system, from Swatch's Web site. The pager alone sells for $75, and the prepaid service package of 1,000...
Metrocall Inc. and PageMart Wireless Inc. have entered a five-year strategic alliance that is part resale agreement, part shared network buildout relationship.In the first phase of the alliance, to begin immediately, Metrocall plans to resell PageMart's advanced messaging services in areas where PageMart's narrowband...
Consolidation among heavyweights in the telecommunications industry, including some of the wireless sector's largest carriers, has grabbed the headlines during the last several months. Meanwhile, the tower industry has been experiencing a rapid consolidation of its own.Since the beginning of this month, American Tower...
The recent stock market volatility has created uncertainty among investors, leading to a rather steep slide in wireless stock value, say financial analysts following the wireless industry.Paging stocks have been hit particularly hard, some are trading more than 50 percent below their value from...
Citing in part its superior response to the Galaxy IV satellite outage, the U.S. Department of Defense said it will replace Paging Network Inc. with SkyTel Communications Inc. as its paging provider for the Pentagon's 25,000 paging users.PageNet's contract with the Defense Telecommunications Service-Washington-which...
Paging carriers are showing signs that they have taken to heart analysts' warnings that information services must be customizable and have real value in order to convince customers to pay for them.While paging carriers believe information services have the potential to generate increased average...
In the paging industry today, money talks.Carriers know this and are pursuing every avenue available to bulk up the bottom line. One relatively new road eyed by some carriers is prepaid paging.At first it sounds suspect, as prepaid services traditionally cater to low-tier, credit-challenged...
DataLink Systems Corp.-a company providing real-time turnkey information services-introduced two new information services this week, expanding its portfolio of personalized Web-based content.Sports2Go, offered in conjunction with ESPN, delivers sports scores at intervals of the customers choosing-at a pre-selected time, every hour, by inning/period/quarter, after...
Iridium announced last week it does not plan to meet its commercial launch goal of Sept. 23 because the mobile satellite service provider needs to tinker a bit more with its network. However, the company by Sept. 23 hopes to have 2,000 people using...
JACKSON, Miss.-SkyTel Communications Inc. announced it has begun a new advertising campaign touting its guaranteed messaging service, SkyWord Plus, and at the same time is introducing the new AccessLink II two-way pager from Glenayre Technologies Inc.'s Wireless Access Group.The new campaign targets nationwide travelers,...
The massive popularity of 3Com Corp.'s PalmPilot personal digital assistant has spurred several mobile communications companies to develop wireless solutions for the product. The most recent application is from Mitsubishi Wireless Communications Inc., whose Personal Mobile Communications Division recently announced the availability of its...
BellSouth Wireless Data L.P. marks its re-entry into the paging market this week with the commercial debut of its two-way Interactive Paging Service.The service uses the new Inter@ctive 950 pager designed by Research In Motion. RIM's wearable, two-way pager features a variety of improvements...
AT&T Wireless Services Inc.'s Advanced Messaging Division introduced two new services last week-a guaranteed delivery service and a nationwide paging alternative.The first, called AlphaTrack, is a guaranteed-messaging service reselling SkyTel Communications Inc.'s ReFLEX 50 network airtime. This is the second major resale agreement for...
The recent commercial launch of PageMart Wireless Inc.'s facilities-based ReFLEX 25 narrowband personal communications services network has heralded in the new age of paging, in which all major paging players will operate some type of two-way network.SkyTel Communications Inc. no longer will be the...
NEW YORK-Standard & Poor's Corp. announced it upgraded its outlook on SkyTel Communications Inc. from negative to stable, citing the company's improved cash flow and advanced messaging unit growth reported in its second-quarter earnings.Although it expects SkyTel's finances to improve, Standard & Poor's said...
Several paging carriers released their second-quarter earnings reports last week, each revealing a continued effort toward achieving profitability and reducing debt.Metrocall Inc. capped off a busy second quarter with a reported net loss of $28.7 million, or 76 cents per share, compared with $12.3...
PageMart Wireless Inc. announced an aggressive rollout schedule for its facilities-based ReFLEX 25 guaranteed messaging service, with commercial service planned for areas of 15 additional states in August as well as expansions in the inaugural state of Texas.States expected to have service this month...
WASHINGTON-The House approved high-tech securities reform litigation that would create uniform national standards for class action shareholder lawsuits and keep such cases in federal court."This bill closes a loophole and prevents those specializing in securities class actions from using state courts to circumvent the...
The paging industry experienced some greater-than-usual excitement in the second quarter that securities analysts at Toronto Dominion Securities Inc. believe will set the tone for the next stage of the market's transformation.Second-quarter highlights include: Arch Communications Group's operational restructuring and financial recapitalization, Metrocall Inc.'s acquisition...
ALEXANDRIA, Va.-Metrocall Inc. announced a two-year strategic marketing agreement with Washington Gas, under which the utility will offer Metrocall pagers and services to its customers in the Washington, D.C., area via bill inserts.Those accepting the offer will get free service for two months, said...
JACKSON, Miss.-SkyTel Communications Inc. announced it will deliver news from MSNBC to its subscribers at no additional cost.Subscribers will receive MSNBC headlines twice a day at 11: 30 a.m. and 4: 30 p.m. SkyTel and MSNBC will cross link their Web sites as well so subscribers...
Glenayre Technologies Inc.'s Wireless Access Group introduced its next-generation interactive two-way messaging device, called the AccessLink II.Based on Motorola Inc.'s ReFLEX two-way paging protocol, the AccessLink II is an evolution from the original AccessLink-the first two-way interactive device on the market. In particular, it...
