WASHINGTON-After months of being publicly pounded on antenna siting, health concerns, unsafe cell phone drivers and blocked E-911 calls, the wireless industry is responding with an approach that relies on good corporate citizenship and uses the power of advertising to stress the public-safety benefits...
Dr. Dan Schlager, M.D., president of Zoltar Satellite Alarm Systems, filed an ex parte brief with the Federal Communications Commission urging it to apply Phase II E911 rules on locating emergency callers to new wireless phones only.Schlager said the wireless industry should follow the...
More bad news for the wireless telecom industry on the RF front. The Communications Workers of America is throwing its full weight behind an appeal in the D.C. circuit to overturn the 1996 hybrid RF exposure standard.Organized labor, which threw $35 million at the...
Sitting in a meeting several years ago, Douglas (Bud) Weiser and his staff were oblivious to a tornado touching down not too far from their office. Traditional emergency warning systems-outdoor sirens and television and radio broadcasts-weren't able to reach them.Yet, according to Weiser, everyone...
The National Telecommunications Commission in the Philippines announced it will issue one nationwide and four regional permits for new mobile phone operators there.Kari Roe, analyst for Asia and the Pacific Rim for International Technology Consultants in Bethesda, Md., said the tender is for an...
WASHINGTON-Amid an uproar of protest within an earshot of the White House against China's human and religious rights record and its sale of nuclear technology to rogue states, President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin announced China will sign a global pact to phase...
WASHINGTON-In a stunning setback and reversal of fortune for the wireless industry, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and James Jeffords (R-Vt.) last week introduced legislation to gut antenna siting pre-emption provisions from the 1996 telecom act."I do not want Vermont turned into a giant pincushion...
WinStar Communications Inc. last week announced it signed agreements with Siemens Telecom Networks and Broadband Networks Inc., which will allow WinStar to supply digital multipoint local network systems for deployment in the United States.The company, which now provides point-to-point services, said it plans to...
Could this be the year for wireless data?Although proponents of wireless data are no doubt tired of being asked that question, some announcements this week certainly have to cause their hearts to race, if just a little.Lucent Technologies Inc. and NEO Networks, and Sun...
WASHINGTON-As he winds down the cellular industry-funded cancer research project with little to show for the $28 million that will have been spent by mid-1999 when he leaves, Wireless Research Technology L.L.C.'s Dr. George Carlo is quietly ramping up a new industry-backed health program...
WASHINGTON-In a surprisingly candid admission, the head of the cellular industry's cancer research project said he will leave the six-year, $28 million program in mid-1999 without conducting either short-term or long-term animal exposure studies.Last week's revelation, which Wireless Technology Research L.L.C. head Dr. George...
WASHINGTON-National Telecommunications and Information Administration head Larry Irving called the first U.S.-China telecommunications summit "a resounding success," an appraisal that belies the Clinton administration's growing frustration with Chinese trade barriers and one that could reinforce the view that high-tech commerce is driving U.S. foreign...
WASHINGTON-Senate Commerce Committee members sternly advised Federal Communications Commission chairman nominee William Kennard to rethink agency positions on federal pre-emption and wireless universal service funding and to stop dragging its feet on little low-earth orbit satellite licensing.But despite sharp criticism of the FCC's handling...
WASHINGTON-Electric power deregulation is forcing monopoly utilities to look at wireless telecommunications as a revenue-generating means to capitalize on existing infrastructure and to diversify in a new competitive environment.Though none of the various bills to deregulate the $200 billion electric power industry are expected...
BALTIMORE-Statistics have shown that some 70 percent of calls made to 911 operators have nothing to do with life-or-death situations. People have been trained to call the number to gain immediate access to someone who may or may not be able to help. Although...
Lucent Technologies Inc., the equipment division spun off by AT&T Corp. last year, and Netherlands-based Philips Electronics N.V., one of the world's largest electronic companies, announced plans to combine their consumer phone equipment operations in a joint venture sure to create the largest phone...
NEW YORK-Incumbent and new carriers in Europe, the world's third- largest telecommunications market, are in reasonably good shape to meet competitive pressures despite uncertainties posed by pending deregulation, according to a report just published by Moody's Investors Service Inc., New York.As the World Trade...
Globalstar L.P. announced at a signing ceremony it has placed purchase orders by the partners that comprise Globalstar's limited partnership for 35 Globalstar gateways to be installed around the world. The contracts, totaling approximately $275 million, represent a further commitment by the Globalstar partners...
WASHINGTON-The head of the wireless industry's cancer research project last week cautioned against reading too much into preliminary findings from a new Finnish study that mobile phones are free of health risks.Dr. George L. Carlo, chairman of Wireless Technology Research L.L.C., said that while...
NEW YORK-Barely finished with its acquisition of Pacific Telesis Group, SBC Communications Corp. is widely rumored to be exploring merger possibilities with AT&T Corp.Ruthlyn Newell, a spokesman for AT&T, headquartered in New York, declined to comment, citing company policy on "rumors or speculation about...
WASHINGTON-Two seemingly unrelated national policy actions highlight how regulators and lawmakers may be overlooking and underestimating the value of wireless technology in the new telecommunications paradigm that stresses competition and connectability.Last month, the Federal Communications Commission created a new, $2 billion universal service fund...
SKOKIE, Ill.-U.S. Robotics and Northern Telecom Ltd. agreed to jointly develop wireless data access products for mobile professionals needing wireless access to e-mail, the Internet and other data applications."Digital wireless technology promises faster, higher quality and more reliable data transmission than circuit-switched analog cellular...
WASHINGTON-In a January 1993 article, a year-and-a-half before joining the Federal Communications Commission, then-attorney Rachelle Chong laid out what has turned out to be a model defense of cellular phone-cancer lawsuits.Chong, in a paper titled "Zap, Crackle, Pop" delivered at a conference in Asia,...
BOSTON-The New England Journal of Medicine published an article last week that says wireless phones can disrupt heart pacemakers but do not pose health risks-findings that are not new.Detecting interference between wireless phones and pacemakers has been established in a few different studies. Last...
