NEW YORK-Moody's Investors Service has assigned a speculative grade rating of B2 to a proposed $1.21 billion in secured credit facilities that will be used to fund Centennial Cellular Corp.'s buyout and recapitalization by Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and Blackstone Capital Partners.The new...
NEW YORK-After dramatically reducing the size and price of its initial public offering, Crown Castle International Corp., a Houston-based wireless tower company, sold 14 million shares at $13 each Aug. 18.The company had registered June 19 with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell...
AT&T Wireless Services Inc.'s Advanced Messaging Division introduced two new services last week-a guaranteed delivery service and a nationwide paging alternative.The first, called AlphaTrack, is a guaranteed-messaging service reselling SkyTel Communications Inc.'s ReFLEX 50 network airtime. This is the second major resale agreement for...
DALLAS-Mobile Systems International announced that MSI Americas sold eight Planet network design software and service licenses to TeleCorp PCS Inc. to help the company plan its network buildout.TeleCorp is a large AT&T Wireless Services Inc. affiliate. The company plans to launch service in New...
The emergence of personal communications services providers is putting the often-tenuous relationship between carriers and resellers to the test in more ways than one.PCS once was viewed as the next area where resale would be used widely to increase subscriber numbers quickly. Instead, competition...
DALLAS-Northern Telecom Ltd. and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. said they will jointly develop and market enhancements to Nortel's Companion Microcellular system, a digital wireless private branch exchange, to deliver Wireless Office Service from AWS in building and campus environments.The integration of Nortel's system with...
CINCINNATI-Cincinnati Bell Wireless announced that it expanded its southwest Ohio operating region by launching personal communications services in Dayton.The launch coincides with the opening of four new Cincinnati Bell Wireless retail outlets. The launch is being coordinated through a management agreement with AT&T Wireless...
The vast number of players coupled with loads of savvy Wall Street money has set the stage for mass consolidation within the tower industry.The rate of acquisitions has moved quickly within the last year, and industry executives and analysts say only a handful will...
In the past year, paging companies have engineered a striking makeover designed to change their "look" to better meet the business style of the new millennium.Just as the parachute pants and spiked haircuts of the 1980s are out and the khaki pants and George...
WASHINGTON-Saying he was responding to constituent complaints about non-itemized billing, Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.) recently introduced legislation requiring all commercial mobile radio service providers to itemize customer bills.This itemization is to include: the date, origination time, origination and destination numbers, length of call, charge for...
Arch Communications Group Inc. lowered its cash interest expenses by $4.55 million a year following a series of interest rate swaps in connection with a $100 million 14-percent senior notes offering. The company lowered the interest rate on the senior notes from 14 percent...
The first half of this year has produced several landscape-changing events in the wireless industry. If completed, the proposed mergers between SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp. could put several significant cellular markets up for grabs by...
ALEXANDRIA, Minn.-Rural Cellular Corp. said it received the regulatory approvals necessary to complete the purchase of the outstanding stock of Western Maine Cellular Inc.Rural Cellular paid about $7.5 million for Western Maine Cellular, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Utilities Inc. The company...
New studies indicate cellular and personal communications services operators are beginning to segment the market by means of pricing.A survey from Toronto Dominion Securities in New York indicates cellular carriers such as AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and GTE Wireless in several markets clearly have...
GREENSBORO, N.C.-Vanguard Cellular Systems Inc. signed a multiyear strategic partnership with Metrocall Inc. for paging service development and distribution and closed its purchase of another paging carrier.Vanguard plans to buy and install paging transmitters on Metrocall networks in areas of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-New Local Multipoint Distribution Services operators are expected to earn $6.5 billion by 2007, according to "LMDS Buildout Strategies: A Broadband Wireless Market Research Report," a recently released report from Pioneer Consulting.About 75 percent of the projected revenues are expected to be generated by...
Dobson Communications Corp. signed an agreement to acquire Sygnet Wireless Inc., which has been looking for a buyer since April.The agreement will expand Dobson's wireless footprint to include Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Dobson's wireless networks already cover Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, California...
Several paging carriers released their second-quarter earnings reports last week, each revealing a continued effort toward achieving profitability and reducing debt.Metrocall Inc. capped off a busy second quarter with a reported net loss of $28.7 million, or 76 cents per share, compared with $12.3...
NEW YORK-Charles R. Lee, chief executive officer of GTE Corp., and Ivan G. Seidenberg, CEO of Bell Atlantic Corp., rode into town July 28 on a horse with no name, a planned combination carrier as yet lacking a new handle."Not so fast, boys," said...
Mobile phone sales during the second quarter gave Nokia Corp. a boost when it released its second-quarter earnings July 24, while its Swedish rival L.M. Ericsson suffered a plunge in its stock prices and several ratings downgrades on news its mobile phone sales were...
The quest for international partnerships continued last week as AT&T Corp. announced a $10 billion joint-venture plan with British Telecommunications plc to more strongly position itself in the global market.AT&T and BT July 26 said they have agreed to pool their international operations and...
WASHINGTON-House telecommunications subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.), compromising with Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) on privacy, liability and cancer-research funding, won bipartisan approval last week on legislation to improve E911 wireless capability and foster antenna siting on federal land.The bill, which the House Commerce Committee...
ALEXANDRIA, Va.-The Personal Communications Industry Association announced the industry leaders who will speak at the Personal Communications Showcase '98 conference Sept. 22-25 in Orlando, Fla.Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard will deliver the keynote address at the opening SuperSession, "Connect to Leadership: Building a Wireless...
Applied Cellular Technology Inc. formed an executive search committee to fill the position of president and chief executive officer. The committee, made up of several outside board members and Richard Sullivan, chairman and CEO of Applied Cellular, will work with an independent top-tier executive...
