Boston Communications Group Inc. reached an agreement with RadioShack to jointly distribute wireless prepaid services. “RadioShack displays a strong commitment toward wireless prepaid services, and because of this, the impact across the industry is significant,” said Kevin Thigpen, vice president of prepaid distribution for Boston. “RadioShack is an extremely valuable distribution partner for Boston Communications Group’s member carriers.” RadioShack has more than 6,800 locations nationwide, and it had annual sales last year of $3.2 billion.
Dictaphone Corp. reached an agreement with GTE Corp. to provide recording equipment for GTE to include in its turnkey products for the public-safety market. GTE provides public-safety departments with 911 systems, computer-aided dispatch systems, records management, voice logging and geographic information products. Dictaphone’s Guardian, ProLog and Sentinel communications recording systems, as well as its Call Check emergency message repeaters, will be included in GTE’s offerings.
International Billing Systems Inc. won an exclusive five-year contract to process American Personal Communications L.P.’s account statements. The agreement calls for IBS to produce APC’s customer statements for Sprint Spectrum L.P.’s personal communications services network, which operates under the Sprint PCS brand name. In addition, IBS will design and print APC’s envelopes and inserts, supply the IBS Direct Access System and ensure an average turnaround time of 24 hours, said IBS.
Telident Inc. and Mitel Corp. reached an agreement to allow Mitel to market Telident’s products and services, which will provide enhanced 911 capabilities to Mitel’s portfolio of private branch exchange telephone systems. Telident said in most cases, emergency calls to 911 from a PBX caller provide only the billing address and main telephone number of the PBX.
USCI Inc.’s wholly owned subsidiary, Ameritel Communications Inc., signed an agreement with Walgreen Co. to sell one-way paging services on a national platform in all 2,450 Walgreen retail locations. USCI said it will install specialized point-of-purchase centers in all the stores with paging sales beginning in August. Bruce Hahn, president and chief executive officer of USCI, said the expansion into Walgreen stores could position USCI to exceed its goal of 7,000 retail locations by the end of the year.
Comsat Corp. will complete the spinoff of its interest in Ascent Entertainment Group Inc. to its shareholders this month. The company’s board of directors declared a special dividend to Comsat shareholders and established June 19 as the record date and June 27 as the payment date for the dividend. The distribution will be made on a pro rata basis.
