ACC Corp., through its wholly owned subsidiary ACC TelEnterprises Ltd., signed an agreement with Paging Network of Canada Inc., a paging company affiliated with PageNet in the United States, to resell PageNet services under the ACC brand name. The paging services will be bundled with ACC Canada’s other telecommunications services and will be available to customers beginning Feb. 1. The company said it hopes to expand service throughout its North American region in the future.
Northern Telecom Ltd. won contracts to develop and expand Global System for Mobile communications networks in China’s Shandong province and Ningbo, Zhejiang province. The company values the agreements at $10 million. They were awarded by China United Telecommunications Corp. Nortel said it will deliver its DMS-Mobile Switch Center equipment, which will provide service to 50,000 subscribers in Shandong’s three major cities by the end of the first quarter. Nortel also will expand the existing base station subsystem and switching equipment in the Ningbo city branch of China United Telecommunications. The network is expected to be operational by mid-1997, the company said.
Vodafone Group plc. said it has surpassed 1 million subscribers connected to its overseas networks. In total, Vodafone said it has more than 3.8 million subscribers. Chris Gent, chief executive officer of Vodafone, said the company’s share of growth in net new international subscribers (486,000) was more than connected in the United Kingdom (468,000).
In related news, Vodafone said it is nearing a commercial roaming agreement with Omnipoint Corp. The agreement, which the company expects in the next few weeks, will allow Vodafone subscribers to use their UK Vodafone subscriber identity module card in a 1900 MHz handset to make and receive calls while in New York City. Omnipoint customers will be able to use their Omnipoint SIM card in Global System for Mobile communications handsets while in the United Kingdom.
L.M. Ericsson signed a frame agreement to upgrade Radiomovil Dipsa S.A. de C.V. (Telcel)’s network with digital Advanced Mobile Phone Service Interim Standard 136 technology. D-AMPS is also known as Time Division Multiple Access. The contract spans from 1997 to 1999 and is valued by the company at $495 million. The agreement also calls for Ericsson to expand Telcel’s existing AMPS network and provide the wireless intelligent network platform. Telcel operates a nationwide network in Mexico.
Ericsson also signed a contract with Eurotel to install a Global System for Mobile communications network in Slovakia. Eurotel is owned by Slovak PTT, U S West Inc. and Bell Atlantic Corp. Ericsson said it is the first order for public telecommunications in Slovakia and includes new switches and radio base station equipment. Commercial service is expected to begin in February.
