Ericsson Inc. announced it supplied equipment and services to Airadigm Communications Inc. for its Einstein personal communications services network in Appleton, Wis. The network uses Global System for Mobile communications technology. Ericsson supplied mobile switching centers, base station controllers, base stations and the MXE short message system, as well as equipment installation, testing and commissioning services. Ericsson also is providing remote management of the network.
Geotek Communications Inc. reached an agreement with investors affiliated with the Soros Group to amend the terms of its April 1996 unsecured credit facility. Geotek will be allowed to borrow funds under the $40 million facility until April 4, 1999, and to repay the principal amount within five years from the last borrowing. Interest will be payable semi-annually at a rate of 8 percent, said the company. The parties also agreed to extend until April 2003 the expiration date of the warrants to purchase approximately 4.2 million shares of Geotek’s common stock and to reset the exercise price to $6 per share.
DSP Communications Inc. said it completed the repurchase of 2 million shares of its common stock in an open market repurchase program that was announced last week. The board of directors authorized an additional repurchase program for as many as 2 million shares of the company’s common stock on the open market and in privately negotiated transactions. The second repurchase represents about 4.7 percent of the company’s 43 million shares outstanding.
Lucent Technologies Inc.’s financial strength, variety of products and large installed equipment base has given the company a strong foothold in domestic as well as global markets, according to a credit analysis report issued by Duff & Phelps Credit Rating Co. The report says Lucent has an installed base of more than 110 million wireless local access lines in the United States. The company has 1.4 million business customer locations in more than 94 countries and relationships with 23 of the world’s largest network operators, the report continues.
USN Communications signed a contract with PageMart Wireless Inc. allowing USN to offer numeric and alphanumeric pagers equipped for local, regional and national services. USN customers will have the opportunity to choose from paging services including voice mail, numeric retrieval, message recall, personal 800 services and a maintenance program.
WinStar Communications Inc. acquired Pinnacle Nine Communications L.L.C. giving it 38 GHz licenses in Dallas, Philadelphia and Baltimore. WinStar said it now has 600 megahertz of bandwidth in each of those markets. The company has licenses in 47 top U.S. markets, including 700 megahertz in New York City.
