The following wireless companies received ratings changes or guidance this week from financial services and investment firms. MetroPCS, Nortel, Motorola, Sprint, Alltel, U.S. Cellular and Telus mentioned.Standard & Poor's Ratings Service withdrew its CCC/Negative/- corporate credit and senior unsecured debt ratings on MetroPCS Inc....
Dobson Communications Corp. denied a Standard & Poor's report that the regional wireless operator was considering a sale of its financially troubled American Cellular Corp. subsidiary. The S&P online newsletter cited unnamed sources and speculated that strong trading of Dobson's bonds was linked to...
BEDMINSTER, N.J.-A new multimedia messaging service interoperability agreement will allow Verizon Wireless and Leap Wireless International Inc. subscribers to exchange photos and video clips, the carriers said. The service is powered by wireless messaging company Mobile 365, which supports the CDMA2000 1x network standard...
The wireless industry is quickly following the wireline market with a handful of large operators dominating the market, according to independent credit rating agency Standard & Poor's. With the latest round of merger and acquisition activity fully under way, S&P claims the industry's soon-to-be...
Telephone & Data Systems Inc. launched an initiative that could allow it to buy the remaining stake in U.S. Cellular Corp. that it doesn't already own and make the cellular unit a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, according to a recent Securities and...
WASHINGTON-Nine wireless carriers said they will send text messages to people who opt in to receive Amber Alerts over their cell phones in the culmination of a movement CTIA President Steve Largent began more than a year ago.Participating carriers are Alltel Corp., Cingular Wireless...
Following is a list of debt and credit upgrades and downgrades for wireless companies by financial and investment firms this week:Standard & Poor's revised its outlook on Sanmina-SCI Corp. to negative from stable following what S&P called disappointing earnings for the second quarter ended...
Cingular Wireless L.L.C.'s tenure as the nation's fastest-growing wireless operator came to a screeching halt as Verizon Wireless took back the title it lost in 2004. Surpassing even the most optimistic forecasts, Verizon Wireless said it added 1.64 million subscribers during the first quarter,...
CHICAGO-Regional wireless operator U.S. Cellular Corp. posted 182,000 net customer additions during the first quarter of this year, which fell short of the 196,000 customers the carrier added during the first quarter of last year, but was ahead of analysts' estimates. U.S. Cellular noted...
Dear Editor: I was happy to see the clarification at the bottom of page 25 of the April 11 issue of RCR Wireless News concerning U.S. Cellular's best overall score in analysis of customer complaints. The carrier had 39 complaints per 1 million customers-almost...
Few customer segments have drawn as much consternation from the wireless industry as prepaid subscribers. Non-contract customers have traditionally rewarded operators with lower revenue and higher churn rates when compared with postpaid subscribers and thus have been offered only token rate plans. But, with...
In the April 4 story about complaints from wireless users (on page 11), the score from U.S. Cellular Corp. was not mentioned. Among nationwide carriers, Verizon Wireless scored best with 76 complaints per 1 million subscribers. However, the best overall score goes to regional...
NEW ORLEANS-America Online Inc. announced deals with two U.S. wireless carriers. Cingular Wireless L.L.C. said it is working with AOL to give Cingular Wireless customers easy access to AOL's new mobile portal, Instant Pictures and mobile You've Got Pictures services.The Instant Pictures feature for...
SEATTLE-Qpass said it signed a multi-year licensing agreement with U.S. Cellular Corp., allowing U.S. Cellular to use Qpass' MultiMedia Album solution to provide a rich peer-to-peer photo, media and messaging experience for user- generated content such as photos, text and audio for its subscribers."The...
NEW ORLEANS-America Online Inc. announced deals with two U.S. wireless carriers.Cingular Wireless L.L.C. said it is working with AOL to give Cingular Wireless customers easy access to AOL's new mobile portal, Instant Pictures and mobile You've Got Pictures services.The Instant Pictures feature for the...
Editor's Note: RCR Wireless News announces that Wayne Schelle has been inducted into the Wireless Hall of Fame for 2005, now in its sixth year. The Hall of Fame recognizes the efforts of those people who have made significant contributions to advance wireless telecommunications....
Kodiak Network's rapidly expanding Real-Time Exchange System and accompanying Advanced Voice Services applications received another set of updates, which the company said further advances the platform beyond a push-to-talk offering. The new updates include a BREW client designed to enable faster deployment on CDMA...
WASHINGTON-The mobile-phone industry has signaled it will aggressively litigate taxes deemed illegal, suing the City of Baltimore over a wireless fee and persuading an Illinois court to order hundreds of towns to return to wireless subscribers $1.3 million in charges ruled unconstitutional by the...
Less than three weeks after it began, the Federal Communications Commission's Auction 58 of 242 spectrum licenses in the 1.9 GHz band came to a quiet close last Tuesday, having garnered just more than $2 billion in net bids including FCC credits for 217...
CHICAGO-U.S. Cellular Corp.'s parent company Telephone and Data Systems Inc. reported its board of directors has approved a distribution of a stock dividend for each outstanding common share and series A common share owned. The dividend is in the form of one special common...
U.S. Cellular Corp.'s parent company Telephone and Data Systems Inc. reported its board of directors has approved a distribution of a stock dividend for each outstanding common share and series A common share owned. The dividend is in the form of one special common...
The wireless industry's record customer growth during the final three months of 2004 received contributions last week from a regional operator and a pair of affiliates, showing-though proportionally smaller than the numbers posted by the industry's heavyweights-that there is still room for growth regardless...
CHICAGO-Regional wireless operator U.S. Cellular Corp. said it added 150,000 net customers during the fourth quarter of last year, which was in line with estimates and ahead of the 141,000 subscribers the carrier added during the fourth quarter of 203. The year-over-year increase was...
The nation's three largest wireless operators have the highest percentage of customers under contract for more than 12 months, according to consumer data research compiled by Stax Inc. The research firm noted that 43.1 percent of Verizon Wireless customers, 42.9 percent of Cingular Wireless...
