April 1998

ALEXANDRIA, Va.-The Personal Communications Industry Association last week challenged unexplained regulatory fee increases, claiming the fees will hinder competition between wireless and wireline services. PCIA argued the Federal Communications Commission has denied wireless, local exchange and interexchange carriers; and television …

DALLAS-Glenayre Technologies Inc.’s net income dropped 77 percent in the first quarter, but the company announced several new contracts. Glenayre reported net income of $3.2 million, or 5 cents per common share, well below its 1997 first-quarter bottom line of …

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.-InterDigital Technology Corp. entered into patent license agreements with two unnamed Japanese manufacturers of digital cellular equipment, resulting in up-front payments of $33 million. One licensee will pay the ITC future royalties on the sale of products …

Personal communications services provider Omnipoint Corp. last week became one of the first C-block licensees to select options from the Federal Communications Commission’s license rules. Omnipoint said it elected to return portions of its spectrum in a move it expects …

The story on Rock Creek Park antenna siting in the April 10 issue (page 3) misidentified the companies of two executives. Maureen Kane is the manager of site acquisition for Cellular One of Washington, D.C.-Baltimore and Mike Mause is director …

SAN ANTONIO, Texas-SBC Communications Inc. added 112,000 wireless subscribers during this year’s first quarter-and 919,000 during the past 12 months-bringing its total number of domestic wireless subscribers to 5.6 million. Subscriber growth during the quarter was driven by SBC’s personal …

LAS VEGAS-Sierra Wireless Inc. introduced a new type of wireless data modem at the International Wireless Communications Expo in Las Vegas last week that combines Circuit Switched Cellular and Cellular Digital Packet Data services. The 3-watt modem allows transmission of …

FALLS CHURCH, Va.-Spectrum Resources Towers L.P. announced it has acquired the tower assets of Tower Industrial Park, which is based in the Cleveland area. Major tenants include Ameritech Corp., AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Paging Network Inc. and PageMart Wireless Inc., …

NEW YORK-As wireless carriers have closed off easier avenues for theft of services, subscriber fraud, including outright theft of identity, has emerged as the next generation of dirty dealing that carriers confront. The chemistry for this volatile situation results from …

Lucent Technologies Inc.’s Microelectronics Group acquired Optimay GmbH, a privately held software-development company based in Munich, Germany. Optimay, which will become a subsidiary of Lucent Technologies International, develops software products and services for Global System for Mobile communications wireless handsets. …

WASHINGTON-A federal bankruptcy judge in Baltimore last week ordered the Federal Communications Commission to surrender to unsecured creditors of Pocket Communications Inc. information intentionally omitted from the company’s reorganization plan provided last month by the FCC, Justice Department and several …

KANSAS CITY, Mo.-Sprint Spectrum L.P. announced the latest addition to its line of digital phones, the Sony CM-S110SPR, which is manufactured by Qualcomm Personal Electronics. The single-band phone has a suggested retail price of $149 and is packaged with a …

HELSINKI, Finland-Nokia Corp. announced it will provide Tele Danmark a full turnkey solution for a Global System for Mobile communications 1800 MHz network in The Netherlands. Tele Danmark currently is working to form a partnership to create a new nationwide …

CARPINTERIA, Calif.-PulsePoint Communications’ shareholders approved the company’s name change from Digital Sound Corp. to PulsePoint, re-elected its board of directors and authorized a reverse stock split of 1: 4. The company expects its common stock to start trading on a …

IRVINE, Calif.-Personal communications services provider Amica Wireless Phone Service Inc. plans to launch service this year in Illinois and Iowa complete with a customer-care and billing system provided by Subscriber Computing Inc. Amica is a wholly owned subsidiary of C- …

VANCOUVER, British Columbia-Ericsson Inc. last week introduced its Wireless Office System at the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium Global Summit in Vancouver, British Columbia. The premise-based system, designed to capitalize on advantages of the Time Division Multiple Access standard, offers companies …

SAN DIEGO-Qualcomm Inc. entered into a multimillion-dollar, royalty-bearing Code Division Multiple Access subscriber license agreement with Casio Computer Co. Ltd. of Japan. Qualcomm will grant Casio a license to manufacture and sell wireless subscriber products based on its Interim Standard-95 …

Unsecured creditors of Pocket Communications Inc. have subpoenaed the Federal Communications Commission for information omitted from the reorganization plan approved last month by several creditor-vendors, the FCC and the Justice Department. Unsecured creditors believe knowledge of private portions of the …

KIRKLAND, Wash.-Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin AbdulAziz Alsaud of Saudi Arabia invested $200 million cash in Teledesic L.L.C., the “Internet-in-the-Sky” satellite communications venture of primary investors Craig McCaw and Bill Gates. Alwaleed, a billionaire nephew of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahad, …

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.-InfoCellular Inc. entered into a joint marketing agreement with Onyx Technologies L.L.C. to market the companies’ combined product, Info4Score, which is designed to reduce fraud and acquisition time for wireless retail and telemarketing sales channels. “Info4Score provides a wireless …

NEW YORK-Wireless telecommunications services and equipment providers issued nearly $14 billion in debt securities during the first quarter of this year, according to Securities Data Co., Newark, N.J. Overall issuance of investment-grade debt in all industry sectors was approximately $194 …

NEW YORK-Centennial Cellular Corp., New Canaan, Conn., announced the company is considering its options, including selling some or all of its assets. The company, a cellular carrier on the United States mainland and a personal communications services carrier in Puerto …

BOCA RATON, Fla.-Norway’s mobile communications network operator NetCom GSM of Oslo awarded Siemens AG a contract valued at $21.8 million to expand and modernize its base stations in southern Norway. Siemens Public Communication Networks Group plans to upgrade the base …

ASHLAND, Ken.-RAM Technologies announced it has acquired American Answering Service of Charleston, W.Va. “We look forward to providing American Answering Service’s customers with state-of-the-art computerized messaging service, a wide variety of messaging options and the largest paging coverage available,” said …

WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commission member Harold Furchtgott-Roth, joining a growing chorus of critics, has charged the Democratic-led agency with subordinating the interests of rural and low-income universal service recipients to connecting schools, libraries and rural-health care facilities to the Internet by …