NEW YORK-Fraud is following the course of least resistance, trending largely but not exclusively toward subscriber identity theft and away from the use of wireless networks as a means to steal service from carriers.On a worldwide basis, fraud costs wireline and wireless carriers as...
NEW YORK-In profits, the category that counts the most, Nokia Corp. retained top billing, with Ericsson Inc. holding on to second place, according to information from Standard & Poor's.Lucent Technologies Inc., which ranked sixth last year, moved into third place, displacing ADC Telecommunications Inc.,...
For several years, it seems there has been little good news to report about the mobile satellite industry. It is one that has been marked by marginal peaks and inconceivable valleys. Losses in this industry are talked about in terms of billions of dollars,...
In technology as in life, the last protocol on stage is the hero. While time will serve as jury in due course, for now the CDMA operators and manufacturers seem to be gloating, sometimes quietly and sometimes on rooftops, that they are a few...
NEW YORK-The tail is wagging the dog when it comes to billing systems capable of meeting the needs of wireless network operators to enhance average revenue per subscriber by charging for the provision of enhanced data services."In our conversations with carriers during the past...
Tower companies tend to fall into a safe and cozy place in the hard driving, fast moving wireless machine, seemingly immune to the pitfalls that plague carriers and network equipment suppliers, pitfalls such as subscriber churn, microprocessor shortages and a crashing stock market that...
The use of affiliates to manage and operate local markets is common in the wireless industry. While the larger carriers use affiliates to help build out their national footprints, affiliates are often left behind the scenes operating the networks and providing a local connection...
Wireless local loop continues to make a strong showing in its "classic" form in various parts of the world, particularly in India and South America, but in the United States, WLL is limited to small pockets of rural areas where the distance to the...
NEW YORK-The promise of intelligent networks will be realized in their convergence with the world of the Internet, said Paul G. Florack, co-author of a recently published book, Wireless Intelligent Networking.WIN has not succeeded in its ultimate goal of "freeing carriers from the grasp...
108,159.It's quite a large number.It's also the sum of a brief scan through RCR Wireless News headlines from the past few months, headlines detailing job cuts carried out by some of the world's largest telecommunications companies. It is by no means a total and...
NEW YORK-Rural carriers, with operating histories often many decades old, appear poised at the forefront of the strategy for long-term growth based on bundled or converged services.Seeking to be the one-stop-shop location for their customers, these companies have in place or have plans to...
It's all about connecting.The notion that telecommunications exists to connect people is no longer a simple yet catchy idea, but an obvious cliche that does little to sell communications services. Advertising agencies and wireless companies are looking to connect with consumers on a different...
NEW YORK-Some recent developments have brightened the longer-term prospects for smart cards in North American wireless communications, although the picture gets cloudier when framed as an immediate prospect.Opportunity is knocking for expansion of their use in provisioning of telecommunications services. Beyond that deployment, smart-card...
As technologies duel and markets discriminate, the impression is growing that TDMA will roll over in the dust trail and exhaust fumes of GSM and CDMA as both whistle past into the next generation of technologies. But advocates of TDMA technology are quick to...
NEW YORK-Borrowing the vernacular of a traffic engineer, a financier compared the current capital market conditions for telecommunications companies to rush-hour congestion, but observed that the tie-up looks like it is slowly beginning to clear.Investors still are sorting out a host of concerns that...
As the wireless industry is rocked with one huge acquisition, spectrum auction and technological development after another, a small-and often overlooked-market segment continues to operate just below radar. Resellers have quietly been activating wireless customers for the past few decades, but some say they...
NEW YORK-Domestic wireless operators have begun to take prepaid services seriously, although it will be awhile before they approach the successful benchmark set by their European counterparts.Comfort with credit is a key distinction between American consumers and those abroad, where cash is king. Prepaid...
Like the harmony of opposites, caution and adventure characterize the journey to the wide-scale rollout of GPRS. Vendors are playing starry-eyed idealists while operators are avoiding a possible precipice on board the chief migration vehicle: handsets.In view of their contrasting attitudes, operators' low blood pressure...
In an age of customer-service fumbles and a plethora of services, high-tech wizards dream of bundling as the lightning rod to greater revenues. So far, theory has proved superior to practice. But optimism may yet triumph.Unlike in the past when AT&T's monopoly reigned, competition...
WASHINGTON-The Bush administration and a Republican-majority Federal Communications Commission likely will put their stamp on wireless issues in 2001, even though telecom issues are largely nonpartisan."Understand a lot of these issues are not Republican/ Democrat. They are not liberal/conservative. They are not in many...
