In Chicago, where the mobile phone penetration rate is one of the highest among the nation's most populous markets, cellular carriers Ameritech Cellular Services Inc. and SBC Wireless have made aggressive moves to match offers coming primarily from their PCS counterpart, AT&T Wireless Services...
BellSouth Wireless Data L.P. marks its re-entry into the paging market this week with the commercial debut of its two-way Interactive Paging Service.The service uses the new Inter@ctive 950 pager designed by Research In Motion. RIM's wearable, two-way pager features a variety of improvements...
If the promise of enhanced wireless services was a hot-fudge sundae with lots of toppings, about the only thing wireless customers have been served so far is vanilla ice cream sprinkled with nuts.That according to Larry Swasey, senior wireless analyst at Allied Business Intelligence,...
JACKSON, Miss.-SkyTel Communications Inc. announced it is offering a prepaid alphanumeric paging package in addition to its prepaid numeric paging product launched last fall.Prepaid alpha paging allows subscribers to pay for a set number of messages beforehand and renew as necessary. Two prepaid alpha...
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...
Analysts are indicating now is the time to buy some cheap Canadian wireless stocks, as the mobile phone market finally has rebounded from its 1997 growth slump.BT Alex.Brown Inc. expects Canada's mobile phone companies to add a total of 210,000 new subscribers during the...
As the digital revolution begins to move at a substantial pace, mobile phone manufacturers have some tough decisions to make.The demand for digital handsets is growing, especially in the CDMA arena, where carriers are screaming for more handsets. More cellular carriers aggressively are pushing...
PageMart Wireless Inc. launched a narrowband personal communications services network in Austin and San Antonio, offering a guaranteed-receipt alphanumeric message service called Scout.This makes PageMart the first paging carrier since SkyTel Communications Inc. to operate a ReFLEX paging network and the first ever to...
Wideband cdmaOne will play a small part in the proposal Japan's standards body will submit to the International Telecommunications Union as a third-generation technology choice.The Association of Radio Businesses and Industries, ARIB, has been trying to converge wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology, based...
NEW YORK-Pathnet Inc. hopes to raise $100 million by going public to help finance its goal of becoming a national carrier's carrier in smaller markets by upgrading existing wireless infrastructure to develop a synchronous optical network (SONET) system.Pathnet intends to provide a high-capacity, dedicated...
Once astounding the world with its success in 1995 and 1996, Personal Handyphone System service in Japan now has taken a turn for the worse.The number of PHS subscribers has decreased for six straight months since October, sending top executives at all three PHS...
Mobile data applications to date have been fairly industry-specific and complicated, something many in the data industry blame for its confinement to a limited vertical market.But mobile data network carriers Ardis and BellSouth Wireless Data Inc.-formerly RAM Mobile Data USA L.P.-believe two-way interactive text...
BANGKOK, Thailand-Cellular and PCS operators in the Asia-Pacific region have doubled from 56 in 1993 to the current 113, according to the Yankee Group's recently released "Asia-Pacific Wireless Series." The research firm expects the region will house 184 million users or 34 percent of...
NEW YORK-Standard & Poor's Corp., an international debt rating agency based in New York, estimates there will be US$1 trillion in wireline and wireless telecommunications capital needs before the new millennium arrives."Because of the low number of telephone lines worldwide, much of the growth...
Just as analysts had predicted, dual-mode/dual-band handsets are an important strategy for most U.S. personal communications services operators as they build out their networks. Yet some carriers are not actively encouraging customers to buy these handsets, and drawbacks exist when customers roam on analog...
While the world continues to debate the mechanics of third-generation technology, many industry watchers wonder what business case, if any, this new technology will have for carriers.The International Telecommunications Union, a part of the United Nations that has put itself in charge of setting...
BOSTON-In terms of dollars and labor, wireless number portability will cost wireless carriers more than any other single issue, according to the Yankee Group in its recently released report, Wireless Number Portability: A Bowl of Cherries for Competition ... but Just the Pits for Everyone...
CHICAGO-The status of Motorola Inc. has been the hot topic of the week.Again.First, reports surfaced that the vendor was preparing a corporate restructuring that would separate its various businesses into two divisions-an industrial products group and a consumer products group-ending the internal competition fostered...
BOSTON-The future of wireless reselling is based on the resellers' ability to realize economies of scale, provide a wide scope of services and achieve brand awareness, according to a recently published report by the Yankee Group.Titled "Wireless Resale: Is There a Future?," the report estimated...
PrimeCo Personal Communications L.P. awarded Lucent Technologies Inc. a $500 million three-year exclusive contract to supply personal communications services equipment and services for the next phase of its network development.The announcement is a blow to Motorola Inc., which was in discussions with PrimeCo in...
Vendors and carriers have renewed hope that the world could have one standard in place for third-generation systems, but Europe holds one of the keys in making it a reality.The situation is as political as ever as vendors, carriers and interest groups work within...
Worldwide mobile telephony subscriber numbers will climb at triple the compound annual growth rate expected from the landline side between 1996 and 2002, according to a recently published report from the Yankee Group, "Global Trends of Cellular/PCS Markets."In 1995, global mobile telephony subscribers stood...
NEW YORK-Look no further than North American borders for the biggest near-term opportunities to provide billing and customer care systems.In recent years, the focus of procurement contract competition has been on supplying operations support systems, which include billing and customer care, to the green...
In the early 1990s, many industry observers enthusiastically predicted that wireless local loop (WLL) deployments would spread fast and furiously throughout the international telecommunications arena. Given emerging economies' pent-up demand for basic phone service, the introduction of local-exchange competition within industrialized nations and major...
