OmniSky Corp. Chief Executive Officer Patrick McVeigh last fall promised to "kick the barn door open" to the Internet when he introduced a beta version of an end-to-end wireless Internet solution for the Palm V handheld computer.It's time to see how wide the door...
NEW YORK-The ongoing fight for dominance of the U.S. wireless market flared up once again last week as Bell Atlantic Corp. and Vodafone AirTouch plc said they will commence this year an initial public offering of Verizon Wireless, the joint venture that combines the...
It's only been two weeks since Iridium L.L.C. shut off its network in disgrace, and already Globalstar L.P. is feeling the skepticism analysts and the media have heaped upon it as a result.The company's stock, which has fallen 75 percent so far this year,...
Daniel R. Hesse, president of AT&T Wireless Services Inc., said he is leaving the company to head a Seattle-based Internet start-up called TeraBeam Networks. Mohan Gyani, AT&T Wireless' chief financial officer and former CFO of AirTouch Communications, will replace him.Hesse is leaving as AT&T...
To the Editor: Regarding "A Look at Nextel's Bones" (Letters to the Editor, Dec. 3, 1999), the evidence would suggest Mr. Jones' conclusions about Nextel and Morgan O'Brien's speech to the Radio Club of America are not based in fact.With respect to Nextel's dealings with...
Everywhere you look, competition is the key phrase.Paging operator MessageLink noted the intense competition between Internet service providers and paging carriers makes the two ideal partners in the communications business. One company can offer content; one company can offer access.FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth writes...
AustraliaTelecom New Zealand acquired an 80-percent stake in AAPT, Australia's third-largest phone company. AAPT is building LMDS and CDMA networks and resells GSM service.News Corp. said it agreed to invest a further US$127.2 million in One.Tel, increasing its stake to about 25 percent. News...
The clash between World Trade Organization protesters and police last week in Seattle underscores the problems of balancing new free-trade initiatives with concerns about human rights, the environment and the American belief in a decent standard of living for all.While President Clinton denounced last...
In the debate over whether radio-frequency emissions from handsets cause adverse human health effects, the wireless telecommunications industry should borrow a page from the energy industry.Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran a package of stories on corporate response to the contentious global warming issue....
Palm Computing Inc. introduced the Palm VII wireless organizer nationwide last week, featuring a sale price of $500, $100 less than originally expected.The Palm VII-first available in May in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut-features many of the same organizer functions of its predecessors,...
After defaulting on both its $800 million senior secured credit facility and its $750 million guaranteed credit facility last week, Iridium L.L.C. filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.Iridium said the move has the support of banks, bondholders and its strategic partners, and was...
One of Iridium L.L.C.'s main lenders, Chase Manhattan Bank, has asked Iridium to demand that Motorola Inc. provide a guarantee of $300 million under Iridium's $800 million secured credit facility.Iridium made the revelation in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, detailing the progress...
SANTA CLARA, Calif.-3Com Corp. and Aether Technologies Inc. have formed a new company called OpenSky, created to extend corporate intranet and Internet-based information to wireless devices using the Palm Computing platform, Windows CE or the Wireless Application Protocol, as well as pagers.The new company...
After MCI WorldCom Inc. made news with its plans to acquire paging carrier SkyTel Communications Inc., the first question on everyone's mind was, "Why?"In a recently released update, Strategy Analytics said it believes "the acquisition ... represents an attempt by MCI WorldCom to appease...
WASHINGTON-China reportedly is backpedaling on market-opening telecom trade commitments that the Clinton administration believed were agreed to during Premier Zhu Rongji's visit here recently.Robert Cassidy, assistant U.S. trade representative, was scheduled to leave Beijing Sunday after trade talks last week with his Chinese counterpart,...
WASHINGTON-Telecom mergers are not just about mergers anymore.Multibillion-dollar deals have become the jumping-off-point for activism on labor rights, civil rights, regulatory reform, consumer protection, globalism, politics and a slew of other special-interest issues.So many and so big have mergers become that Senate Judiciary Committee...
REDMOND, Wash.-Multiple Zones International Inc. and Wireless Dimension have signed an agreement that will allow the two companies to integrate their products and services into InfoSpace.com Inc.'s syndicated network.InfoSpace.com provides private-label content solutions to more than 1,500 Web sites, including America Online, Netscape's Netcenter,...
Just as paging carriers look to two-way paging as a means of differentiation into the next millennium, so do paging manufacturers.In the past, a one-way pager was pretty much the same all over. Even the new lines of 1.5-way, or guaranteed messaging, pagers based...
WASHINGTON-The battle over whether major local telephone companies will be allowed to merge-expected to be debated again today at the Federal Communications Commission-is tied to spectrum caps more than most people realize, said Motorola Inc.'s Michael D. Kennedy.The Practicing Law Institute's 16th Annual Telecommunications...
Palm Computing Inc., an affiliate of 3Com Corp., introduced the Palm VII personal digital assistant at the Palm Computing Platform Worldwide Developer Conference in Santa Clara, Calif., featuring out-of-the-box wireless connectivity to the Internet, World Wide Web and instant two-way personal communications.Through various partnerships...
WASHINGTON-The wireless industry is at a "watershed point," and is now beginning to compete in earnest with wireline telephony, said Tom Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. The industry is entering the fourth wave of its development, Wheeler said, noting the four...
AvantGo Inc. released a new solution designed to extend enterprise and Web-based applications to handheld computers, allowing companies to deploy corporate applications to mobile devices that are compatible with their existing network and technology infrastructures.The solution, called AvantGo 2.0, consists of the AvantGo Server,...
Investors are nervous when it comes to pricing competition in the mobile industry.
Just look at the effects of a Wall Street Journal article in April that described the competitive Jacksonville, Fla., mobile phone market. That article, in addition to AT&T Wireless Services Inc.'s introduction...
Now that the crisis is over and paging service has been restored, the paging industry is debating exactly what the pre-Memorial Day pager outage means for its future.Carriers that had backup plans felt they handled matters well. But since this was the first incident...
