JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Coinciding with its Telecom Africa 2001 event this week in Johannesburg, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) released a report detailing the state of telecommunications in Africa. The report claims that "within a few years, the majority of Africa citizens will be within...
WASHINGTON—The negotiators finally reached a settlement agreement Thursday that will give the PCS C- and F-block licenses of bankrupt NextWave Telecom Inc. to the re-auction winners. It remains unclear whether Congress will pass legislation, as called for in the agreement, by the end of...
ATLANTA—The University of South Florida plans to use Air2Web's wireless platform to extend wireless services to students, faculty and staff beginning in January 2002.The University's IT department is developing applications including wireless notifications of events, class schedule changes, payment deadline reminders and emergency closures....
BEIJING—UTStarcom has signed a contract worth US$11 million with fixed-line operator China Telecom to expand a local wireless network in Henan province.China Telecom does not have a wireless operator license, but offers local wireless services based on PHS technology. The service is cheaper than...
NEW YORK—AT&T Wireless Services Inc.'s chief financial officer, Joseph McCabe, said during a JP Morgan investor conference that the company might sell its towers to focus on marketing and customer service, according to Bloomberg News.He said AT&T Wireless also is considering leasing space on...
ARLINGTON, Va.—The Telecommunications Industry Association has released a third-quarter supplement to its 2001 Multimedia Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast. The supplement explores policies, technologies and market drivers for domestic and international communications markets and outlines how slow growth in the first three quarters of...
WOODBURY, N.Y.—Two new deals show voice-driven wireless services are becoming more and more popular within the industry.First, Comverse, a unit of Comverse Technology Inc., announced T-Mobile International's wireless German subsidiary, T-Mobil, selected the company's voice portal in order to deliver a range of voice-activated...
REDMOND, Washington, United States—Nokia and AT&T Wireless Services reported the completion of the first live Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) data call using GSM/EDGE technology and a live GSM network environment.The data call was made using an EDGE handset connected with a...
PRAGUE, Czech Republic—All three incumbent mobile operators in the Czech Republic have refused to pay the minimum US$180 million price set for the country's third-generation (3G) licenses, sending the licensing process into an upheaval. The licenses are set to be auctioned next month, but...
BEIJING—China's plans to reassign radio bands for third-generation (3G) mobile services will not affect the small but budding local wireless services offered by fixed-line carrier China Telecom. The service has around 4 million subscribers in China, but is technically outlawed by the Ministry of...
REDMOND, Washington, United States—AT&T Wireless Services said in its third-quarter earnings report that it has decided to exit the fixed wireless business during the next several months. AT&T Wireless said when it became an independent company earlier this year, its fixed wireless business had...
Editor's Note: Since 1993, RCR Wireless News has chosen one person who most impacted the wireless industry that year. As part of our celebration of 20 years of covering the wireless industry, here is a look at past inductees:1993
During the past 20 years, two overriding factors have shaped the wireless carrier landscape: customer growth and carrier consolidation. The number of wireless customers has grown from less than 100,000 subscribers after the first full year of availability in 1984 to nearly 120...
NEW YORK—AT&T Wireless Services announced its plans to buy the 77 percent of TeleCorp PCS it does not already own. AT&T said it will purchase the remainder of the company for US$2.4 billion and take on US$2.1 billion in net debt and US$221 million...
SAN FRANCISCO—AT&T Wireless Services Inc. announced early this week that it will meet its third-quarter subscriber addition target of 700,000 to 750,000.The company also is on schedule with its plans to sometime this year offer GPRS service to about 40 percent of it U.S....
By WASHINGTON-In global spectrum allocations, life goes on even if it doesn't always seem that way.The United States has been working for almost a year to prepare for the World Radiocommunication Conference 2003, currently scheduled for Caracas, Venezuela, in June of that year, even...
BELLEVUE, Wash.—Wireless data delivery solution provider Wireless Services Corp. and mobile software company FreeRein have entered a joint service agreement to commercially release new wireless data applications for worldwide carrier and enterprise customers.The companies said the new wireless applications will be available in the...
NEW DELHI, India-The Indian cellular mobile market has always been fascinating, if only for the sheer number of players that compete here. Each of the 20-odd telecom circles, or geographic coverage areas, will soon have four cellular operators. In addition, there will be basic...
WASHINGTON—Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged the Senate leadership that any decision to transfer the military's 1700 MHz band to the mobile-phone industry for third-generation wireless services not be made until comparable spectrum has been identified and made available to the Pentagon. The Aug. 27...
WASHINGTON—A federal appeals court late Thursday rejected the Federal Communications Commission's plea that it not be required to return licenses to bankrupt personal communications services carrier NextWave Telecom Inc."The licenses are coming back to NextWave absent some further action by the FCC going up...
WASHINGTON—A federal appeals court late Thursday rejected the Federal Communications Commission's plea that it not be required to return licenses to bankrupt PCS carrier NextWave Telecom Inc."The licenses are coming back to NextWave absent some further action by the FCC going up to the...
The NextWave Telecom Inc. saga continued last week as the hopeful wireless wholesaler unveiled funding plans to roll out its network, while its potential wireless competitors/customers continued to look for ways to wrestle some control over licenses that are still waiting for a proper...
WASHINGTON-Bankrupt NextWave Telecom Inc. insisted last week in meetings with industry, federal regulators and the press that it plans to build out its network, and further litigation only delays that from happening."For all practical purposes, this litigation has kept us in jail, kept the...
