LONDON-After 14 rounds of bidding in the U.K. auction of 42 broadband fixed wireless access licenses, bids totaled more than $123.7 million last week, with two companies withdrawing.FirstMark Communications and Unica Communications had withdrawn from the auction at press time.Of the 14 regions with...
Following the disclosure of their third-quarter earnings, two leading local multipoint distribution services carriers proved the business of financing is a hit-and-miss proposition.Winstar Communications Inc. said it secured approximately $1.02 billion in financing, enough money to keep the company funded until it can generate...
LONDON-Ten companies are vying for 42 wireless broadband licenses in the United Kingdom in a government auction commenced last Friday.The auction is expected to raise about $1.42 billion, but could go higher if the final outcome of the government's third-generation PCS auction this spring...
LONDON-The U.K. Radiocommunications Agency said the auction for broadband fixed-wireless access licenses in the 28 GHz band will begin Nov. 10. Nine bidders will participate for three licenses in each of 11 English regions, plus Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.Reserve licenses range from $145,000...
WASHINGTON-Fixed-wireless carriers last week were praising both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission for rules they say will help them gain access to federal government and business customers in multitenant buildings.Congress included language in the transportation appropriations bill that prohibits landlords of buildings...
Congress approved legislation that will increase to 600,000 the number of visas issued to skilled foreign workers during the next three years. The measure also includes provisions funding scholarships for American students and training for U.S. workers."The overwhelming bipartisan support for the H-1B visa...
WASHINGTON-The House telecom subcommittee last week voted to include wireless carriers in a new scheme for carriers to compensate each other for carrying each other's traffic.The bill, which now goes to the full committee for consideration, would end the process known as reciprocal compensation...
WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth got the agency to delay the vote on telecom building-access rules, but brow beating from Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) appeared to have contributed to assurances that the controversial matter will not be sidetracked and will be voted on in...
WASHINGTON-Fixed broadband wireless carriers, seeking to underscore the need for nondiscriminatory building access, say they have identified a `smoking gun' in the form of a legal memo on a license agreement between BroadBand Office and a national real estate company that imposes a 12-month...
LONDON-The U.K. government said 12 companies applied to bid in the October auction for 28 GHz broadband fixed wireless access licenses. The auction is expected to raise about $1.45 billion.Three licenses will be auctioned in each of 11 English regions, along with Scotland, Wales...
WASHINGTON-With the Federal Communications Commission set to rule shortly on whether building owners should be forced to open their doors to upstart telecom carriers, lobbying between fixed broadband wireless carriers and the real estate industry over building access has intensified in a controversy that...
NEW ORLEANS-A sense of urgency surrounded attendees of the Wireless Communications Association's "Xtreme Wireless" conference in New Orleans last week as it became clear the marketplace is ready-but still waiting-for high-speed fixed wireless broadband service.Keynote speaker and Sprint Corp.'s Broadband Wireless Group President Tim...
WASHINGTON-While lobbying intensifies in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission over whether real-estate landlords should provide nondiscriminatory access to fixed broadband wireless carriers, an apparently divided Clinton administration is quietly considering an executive order that would mandate such connections as a prerequisite for...
WASHINGTON-If nothing is done to try to conserve telephone numbers, North America will run out of area codes and later phone numbers sometime between 2012 and 2019.NeuStar Inc. told the North American Numbering Council last week that given the current assumed demand for numbers,...
Pine Belt Wireless, based in Arlington, Ala., said it will introduce prepaid wireless services to its cellular and personal communications services markets using National Telemanagement Corp.'s SmartPay Wireless real-time billing system. SmartPay Wireless is an account-based system that eliminates the added expense and limitations...
NEW YORK-With existing wireless carriers seeking to expand coverage and capacity and new spectrum poised for commercial use, building owners and managers must develop enhanced expertise in telecommunications before negotiating cell site leasing deals.Landlords must deal with issues including: health hazards to equipment installers from...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission last week raised nearly $411 million as it sold 2,173 licenses for fixed wireless service in the 39 GHz band."Winning bidders have the potential to create robust competition to the local telephone companies and other local service providers. This should...
WASHINGTON-While the mobile-phone industry knew from the start it faced an uphill battle to convince the U.S. government to embrace a multiband spectrum harmonization approach for third-generation technology at next month's conference in Turkey, carriers and vendors perhaps did not count on opposition from...
Hong KongPhone.com Inc. and Sunday, a developer and provider of telecommunications and wireless Internet-related services in Hong Kong, launched mobile Internet services using the Phone.com Wireless Application Protocol UP.Link Server 4.0. The service, branded "SO WAP," positions Sunday as the first carrier to deliver...
The Federal Communications Commission has approved 35 bidders to participate in this Wednesday's auction of licenses for the 39 GHz band. The 39 GHz band is located at 38.6-40 GHz. Some of the prominent bidders and their up front payments include WinStar Wireless Fiber...
NEW YORK-After first admonishing all attendees to turn off their cell phones, William T. Lake, a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, Washington, D.C., convened a recent Practising Law Institute conference on Telecommunications Convergence with these remarks."Convergence is a word used without knowing what...
Talk all you want about the wonderful telecom revolution, but don't mention it around District of Columbia pols. They're irked. Big time. First it was mobile-phone towers in Rock Creek Park, which opponents decried as a blight on the landscape and an affront to...
Real estate owners told a House Judiciary subcommittee that forcing private building owners to give access to all telecom service providers would violate constitutional rights of landowners. The Real Access Alliance, comprised of 11 real estate trade associations, has mounted an aggressive lobbying campaign...
SAN FRANCISCO-Wireless broadband network provider Nextlink Communications Inc. announced at the 2000 Broadband Wireless World Forum held in San Francisco last week that it has selected Nortel Networks' Reunion ATM-based point-to-multipoint Frequency Division Multiple Access and Time Division Multiple Access solution, jump-starting the rollout...
