1999

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.-Phone.com Inc. filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission proposing to offer up to 3.3 million additional shares of its common stock. Of the total, 1 million will be sold by the company, with the …

WASHINGTON-Lost in the hoopla over the enactment of wireless 911 legislation last week is the growing prospect that the rollout of position location for the nation’s 80 million mobile-phone users will be seriously delayed in the same way that caller …

The term “consolidation” is now applied continually to the wireless telecoms industry. Yet it seems inadequate to describe a situation in which European telecom companies are disappearing at a rate of up to three a week. The dynamics are clear. …

DENVER-U S West Wireless said it added nearly 60,000 customers during the third quarter, reaching a weighted average penetration rate of 2.6 percent. The personal communications services carrier said it ended the third quarter with 344,000 customers. Average revenue per …

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.-Motorola Inc. announced its Commercial, Government and Industrial Solutions Sector acquired Software Corporation of America Inc., which markets wireless software applications and middleware for public-safety and other markets. SCA pioneered many of the software applications for Cellular Digital Packet …

First, let’s start with the premise that at the moment you were assigned a social-security number, all privacy rights went to hell. But if that were the extent of it, we’d be lucky. Privacy’s slippery slope is getting steeper and …

Tired of listening to the same dry quarterly conference calls? Try listening to Bob Price, chief executive officer of rural cellular operator Price Communications Corp. He’s sure to add some color to your life. Last week, the fiery CEO hammered …

Powertel Inc.’s stock tumbled nearly $12 last week after VoiceStream Wireless Corp. Chief Executive Officer John Stanton said his company has no immediate plans to acquire any more GSM operators in the United States. Powertel’s stock had been riding in …

WASHINGTON-House and Senate lawmakers urged the Federal Communications Commission to lift the processing freeze on 900 MHz multiple address systems applications, but there is little sign private wireless users will get access to the spectrum before year’s end. “In our …

The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) had the biggest coming-out party of its 20-month lifespan during Telecom ’99 in Geneva, with more than 100 carriers, vendors and content providers displaying WAP and WAP-related products-warts and all. While WAP’s momentum has grown …

TEMPLE, Texas-Nextel Partners Inc. announced the launch of Nextel Communication Inc.’s digital wireless service in Waco, Temple and Killeen, Texas, offering businesses service that combines digital cellular, two-way radio and text/numeric paging in one phone. Customers will not have to …

Cameroon Cameroon’s Camtel and Camtel Mobiles are scheduled to be privatized in 2000. Camtel is the incumbent state-owned cellular carrier and operates a GSM 900 network, which had just over 5,100 subscribers as of early this year. A second carrier, …

BEIJING-Tough times lie ahead for equipment suppliers and operators with the establishment of China Mobile expected to slow equipment purchases and with China Unicom still struggling to end its China-China-Foreign contracts and feverishly trying to secure alternative financing. With China …

WASHINGTON-The U.S. wireless industry was rocked on 10 August by revelations that iDEN operator Nextel Communications had entered into an agreement with federal government officials to allow Nextel to buy bankrupt NextWave Telecom’s PCS licenses. NextWave was one of the …

The recession enveloping Colombia is having strong effects on the wireless industry. Cellular carriers, in particular, saw first-half 1999 losses and declining user numbers. And the future will include competition from new PCS licensees. Colombia, which is experiencing its worst …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-Most foreign investment in the wireless market in South America has been directed at Brazil, Argentina and Chile in recent years based on their high wireless demand. However, several other countries in the region are experiencing strong wireless …

WASHINGTON-Wireless carriers next year will begin paying nearly 6 percent of their interstate and international revenues to the federal universal-service fund, according to figures provided by the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau. Even though this assessment used to be about 3 …

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados-Cable & Wireless and the government of Jamaica announced a historic agreement that will lead to the introduction of telecom liberalization far sooner than was scheduled under the carrier’s former string of 25-year licenses. However, the British company has …

BUCHAREST, Romania-A subsidiary of Canada’s Telesystem International Wireless (TIW) won the third Czech Republic mobile telephone license in September. The price tag for the GSM 1800 license was fixed at US$29 million. The license requires Cesky Mobile, the TIW subsidiary, …

HONG KONG – China Telecom Hong Kong (CTHK) announced it plans to acquire three mobile networks in the Fujian, Henan and Hainan provinces of China for US$6.4 billion. The acquisition includes 3.4 million combined subscribers and could make CTHK one …

WASHINGTON-The U.S. House of Representatives last week approved a new District of Columbia appropriations conference report, which includes a provision to foster antenna siting in Rock Creek Park and on other federal lands in the nation’s capital. At RCR press …

VeloCom Inc., which recently won “mirror” licenses to operate competitive telecommunications networks in Brazil, said it has acquired the Latin American assets of Argentina-based SLI Wireless S.A. and Brazil-based Taquari Participacoes S.A., in return for stock. The move gives VeloCom …

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.-Motorola Inc. said it proposed unified Time Division Multiple Access technology guidelines that would allow interoperability and easier migration between TDMA technology and the Frequency Division Multiple Access technology already approved for Project 25 Phase II two-way radio standards. …

During the last five weeks, merger and acquisition announcements have flooded the telecommunications arena. Carriers in Asia, Europe and North America continue to jockey for positions in an industry that promises to exclude players without multinational footprints. Telia/Telenor The merger …

Low-earth-orbit satellite voice provider Globalstar L.P. has reduced the number of handsets expected to be available at the end of the year from 70,000, as announced in September, to between 35,000 and 50,000. Globalstar spokesman Mac Jeffery said the lower …