TOKYO—NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it may not sign up the 150,000 subscribers to its third-generation network by the end of March it predicted when it launched the service last October, though the carrier remains confident it will have 1.5 million subscribers to its FOMA...
BEIJING—In a rare and exclusive interview for the English language newspaper China Daily, the Minister of Information Industry, Wu Jichuan, discussed his country's telecom reform. He hailed the results after three years of reforms compared with European countries, which needed seven to eight years.The...
MOSCOW—Russian Communications Minister Leonid Reiman said the Arabic Thuraya satellite communications company is likely to get a license in Russia if it fulfills all the necessary requirements."I believe Thuraya will get a permission to work in Russia. It has to file a corresponding request,...
ROCHESTER, New York, United States—Eastman Kodak Company announced it will spin off its wireless business into a company called Appairent Technologies, which will develop technology for the wireless transmission of high-quality video, still images and data, Kodak said.Kodak and the Monroe Fund, a private...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—The National Telecommunications Council of Ecuador announced that it will auction three wireless local loop (WLL) licenses on 15 April. The companies that are interested can purchase the tender documents between 28 January and 27 March 27.The bandwidths to be auctioned provide...
ROCHESTER, N.Y.—Eastman Kodak Company announced it will spin off its wireless business into a company called Appairent Technologies Inc., which will develop technology for the wireless transmission of high-quality video, still images and data, Kodak said.Kodak and the Monroe Fund, a private venture-capital fund...
CALGARY, Alberta—Wi-Lan Inc. said it sold its controlling interest in Digital Transmission Systems to a DTS employee stock ownership program."DTS was a good acquisition in January 2000, but the market has changed and we now need to focus on our core wireless business," said...
NEW YORK-Convergent communications are getting closer to reality with development of gateways to distribute content among various stationary and mobile devices and interoperability technology that permits seamless roaming between fixed and mobile networks, speakers at the December Internet World conference said."Centralized media servers tied...
BUCHAREST, Romania—The Romanian cellular operator Telemobil launched on 7 December a nationwide voice and high-speed data network in its 450 MHz spectrum based on CDMA technology. Telemobil will initially introduce service in 30 major cities and towns, with nationwide coverage by 2003.The new system...
WASHINGTON—The ComCare Alliance ACN Data Set Working Group announced it published a draft automatic crash test notification data standard in XML.The standard will facilitate the electronic transmission of automatic crash notification information among telematics service providers and emergency responders.
RESTON, Va.-Nextel Communications Inc. launched Amdocs customer and billing platform Ensemble, which the carrier expects will improve customer service and reduce customer retention costs. The implementation is part of a seven-year outsourcing agreement between the two companies.The platform provides Nextel with a unified customer...
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...
TOKYO—NTT DoCoMo announced it will launch motion picture distribution services for its third-generation (3G) service called FOMA on 19 November. A new handset, which will be equipped with the function for the new service called i-motion, will be launched on the same day. Initially,...
TOKYO—KDDI, the second-largest mobile operator in Japan, announced it will launch location services using the global positioning system (GPS) satellite system and motion picture services with 64 kilobits per second (kbps) data speeds in early December. KDDI is losing market share in Japan, while...
RESTON, Va.—Nextel Communications Inc. launched Amdocs customer and billing platform Ensemble, which the carrier expects will improve customer service and reduce customer retention costs. The implementation is part of a seven-year outsourcing agreement between the two companies.The platform provides Nextel with a unified customer...
TOKYO-Wireless local area network (WLAN) service targeting the retail and travel industries is set to expand quickly in Japan. Some market watchers said that once the WLAN business takes off, it might be a rival for cellular phone service and may rob the cellular...
HELSINKI, Finland-Scandinavia has long been the most fertile and concentrated spawning ground for technology innovation in Europe. The torchbearers for this culture have been led by global names such as Nokia, Ericsson, Benefon and Europolitan.In 1985, Nokia's main claim to fame was as one...
Audiovox CommunicationsAudiovox Communications introduced the Maestro, a Pocket PC that uses Microsoft Windows Powered Pocket PC 2002 software. The product features 32 MB of SDRAM and 32 MB of Flash Rom and an Intel Strong ARM 206 MHz processor. It also includes built-in CFR...
Once upon a time, a technology called pACT had a life, savored some love and then disappeared into oblivion. Another one called B-CDMA rocked the eaves of wireless, had an echo and became silent.Like a wordsmith, the wireless industry had lots of acronyms-B-CDMA,...
SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR—Wireless carrier Digicel signed an agreement with Velocitel to develop its GSM network in El Salvador.The "build-to-suit" lease arrangement will allow Velocitel to invest in transmission sites that provide market potential and strategic value to Digicel for extending coverage. Digicel will...
LONDON—Hutchison 3G UK, which purchased a license to offer third-generation (3G) services in the United Kingdom last year, signed an agreement with U.K.-based electric and telecom company National Grid to locate Hutchison's radio antennas on National Grid's existing towers.The value of the contract was...
TOKYO—NTT East and NTT Corporation announced that they will launch a high-speed wireless local area network (LAN) service with a data transmission speed of 36 Megabits per second (Mbps) in the second quarter of 2002 at the earliest. The service, called Biportable, uses the...
PISCATAWAY, N.J.—A comparison study from The Broadband Wireless Internet Forum looking at adapting current third-generation technologies based on CDMA as a possible alternative transmission system for delivering non-line-of-sight, high-speed wireless broadband services concluded that the tradeoffs in quality would be unacceptable to consumers and...
