NEW YORK-Rural carriers, many of which began as landline providers, already have experienced a long learning curve in service bundling-a current hot topic in the telecommunications industry.No doubt they face challenges posed by downward pressures on roaming revenues and increased competition in their territories....
Speculation circulated last week that Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG is in talks with Qwest Communications International Inc. about a possible merger between the two, while SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. also were rumored to be in merger talks.There are signs that the pending...
DENVER, United States-While Vodafone AirTouch recently advanced its merger with Germany's Mannesmann AG, the company indicated it may look to fill in its footprint with some smaller acquisitions.In particular, the company has been closing in on a bid for a stake in Spain's second-largest...
The European Commission said it will extend its investigation into the proposed merger between MCI WorldCom and Sprint Corp. by another four months.MCI WorldCom and Sprint last fall agreed to a $130 billion definitive merger that will combine the second- and third-largest U.S. long-distance...
LONDON-The U.K. government said it qualified all 13 applicants for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System licenses to bid in a March auction."I am delighted that we have been able to qualify all the applicants and that we are on track for the auction beginning in...
WASHINGTON-The `consensus' reached by a government-industry panel on a third-generation mobile phone position that the Clinton administration can take to the World Radiocommunication Conference this spring underscores the complexities faced by the United States in trying to craft a strategy that advances international business...
NEW YORK-Qualcomm's meteoric stock price appreciation in 1999 may well be a unique phenomenon that other companies are unlikely to replicate.Nonetheless, other established and new telecommunications players seem poised to offer substantial returns on investment, J. Michael Gallipo, portfolio manager of Monument Telecommunications Fund,...
While Vodafone AirTouch plc last week advanced its merger with Germany's Mannesmann AG, the company indicated it may look to fill in its footprint with smaller acquisitions.In particular, the company has been closing in on a bid for a stake in Spain's second-largest mobile...
RESTON, Va.-American Mobile Satellite Corp. announced a marketing alliance with Critical Path Inc. for wireless e-mail services and also released fourth-quarter financial results.Critical Path is an Internet messaging and collaboration solutions company. According to the agreement, the two will connect AMSC's network to Critical...
KANSAS CITY, Mo.-Sprint PCS reported earnings for the fourth quarter and year ended Dec. 31, of $996 million and $3.18 billion, respectively. This marks a significant increase from the $437 million and $1.23 billion reported for the 1998 fourth quarter and year.For the fourth...
Metrocall Inc. took the latest step in the paging industry's evolutionary journey last week, unveiling an acquisition, a new joint venture, a recapitalization plan and a strong financial partner tapped to fund future acquisitions.Although negotiated separately, the various developments serve a common purpose-to prepare...
France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom made significant moves to part ways last week with France Telecom agreeing to purchase Deutsche Telekom's and Sprint Corp.'s stakes in the Global One joint venture for a total equity value of $3.88 billion.The move ended a struggling and...
NEW YORK-Communications companies dominated merger and acquisition activity in 1999, accounting for $304.8 billion in transactions and 21.5 percent of the dollar amount of deals whose dollar values were disclosed.The communications sector also moved up a notch to first place from its 1998 ranking,...
SkyTel, an MCI WorldCom company, announced it will add new paging protocol technology to its network to make it compatible with the next generation of ReFLEX two-way pagers.Today, two-way and assured messaging paging devices have either ReFLEX 50 or ReFLEX 25 software installed, and...
WASHINGTON-With a culture that has resulted in 65 mergers since 1985 with increasingly larger companies, Bernie Ebbers, the chief executive officer of MCI WorldCom Inc., does not believe he will have to divest his Internet backbone to acquire Sprint Corp.'s wireless properties."The wireless thing...
Thirteen groups have applied to bid in the United Kingdom's auction of third-generation mobile-phone licenses.The U.K. government by March plans to auction five licenses, with one license exclusively reserved for a player currently not represented in the U.K. market. Each bidder was required to...
Tegic Communications Inc. signed a global licensing agreement with Voxson, allowing Voxson to integrate the T9 Text Input technology for Chinese and European languages into next-generation wireless phones.Triton Network Systems announced it has signed a multi-year, multimillion dollar deal with Advanced Radio Telecom Corp.,...
NEW YORK-As 1999 drew to a close, two mutual fund managers, one overseeing a diverse investment portfolio, the other specializing in telecommunications, offered contrasting views of the year-2000 stock market outlook.Peter M. Donovan, president of Wright Investors' Service Inc., Bridgeport, Conn., sees the big...
NEW YORK-The discriminatory patchwork of state and local taxes on telecommunications carriers imposes a roadblock to providers of the highways over which all Internet traffic travels, according to recent testimony before a federal commission.To remedy that disparity and confusion, the vice chairman of the...
Bell Atlantic Corp. got the Christmas present it has been wishing for since it was separated from Ma Bell lo those many years ago. On Dec. 22, the Federal Communications Commission said it could begin offering long-distance service in New York.Just to review. The...
As pocket telephone companies cater to the mobile society and make tiny inroads into the monopolized residential sector, a new breed of wireless carriers are emerging to challenge Baby Bells for the highly lucrative high-speed business communications market.2000 could be their year. If not...
In a deal loud with industry-shaking repercussions, the United States' top two paging carriers announced their intention to merge in November, raising the consolidation bar to a level as yet unseen in the industry's history.Arch Communications Group Inc., the second-largest paging carrier, emerged as...
At the end of each year, the RCR editorial staff looks back on the news events that made RCR headlines and decides which were the most significant, industry-impacting stories of the past 12 months. Here are our picks for 1999 in chronological order.1. Jan....
In a bid to strengthen its position in the wireless industry and expand its influence overseas, Internet infrastructure provider InfoSpace.com announced it signed a definitive agreement to acquire wireless Internet portal Saraide Inc.According to the agreement, InfoSpace.com will issue about 2.4 million shares of...
