Editor’s Note: The RCR Wireless News Time Machine is a way to take advantage of our extensive history in covering the wireless space to fire up the DeLorean and take a trip back in time to re-visit some of the more interesting headlines from this week in history. Enjoy the ride!
Analog service not fading away
Wireless service providers offering analog phone service to their subscribers are forced to walk a fine line between alienating established customers who rely on analog service and the increased profitability possible from value-added services offered on digital networks. As carriers acknowledge, analog service is still the preferred choice for some of their customers. Sure, digital can offer a clearer signal and allow access to wireless data and Internet offerings, but in the rural markets where most analog customers live, these benefits are a hard sell. … Read More
Speed Bumps: Limits of wireless Web stifle early growth
Early expectations of the wireless Internet sweeping the country have suffered the realities of the limitations the service offers in comparison to the wired Web. While the number of wirelessly enabled sites grows daily, the lack of access and content these sites provide has left many in the industry questioning their predictions on the wireless Internet. While Sprint PCS recently announced it hit 1 million mobile users nationwide, the news was tempered by questions as to how many of those users are actual subscribers and how many are occasional wireless Internet surfers. However, the company met its forecast of 10-percent penetration of its customer base by the end of 2000. … Read More
WAN/LAN operators target business travelers
While cellular and personal communications services carriers have a long way to go to woo business travelers to their mobile Internet offerings, companies building WAN- and LAN-based networks are poised to take over the wireless Internet market, according to research firm eTinium’s new report. Companies like Metricom, MobileStar and CAIS Internet are offering wide area network and local area network data services that are far more suited to mobile businesspeople, the report states. These networks offer users high-speed access, from 128 Kbps to 2 Mbps, which mobile workers need for entry into corporate networks, Web browsing and access to e-mail with attachments. In addition, these networks aren’t “walled” like the limited Internet offerings from cellular and PCS carriers. … Read More
Resale: on the edge of change?
As the wireless industry is rocked with one huge acquisition, spectrum auction and technological development after another, a small-and often overlooked-market segment continues to operate just below radar. Resellers have quietly been activating wireless customers for the past few decades, but some say they may soon light up the industry by ushering in a sweeping change that could bring carriers to profitability and a new business model to the table. Resellers, which buy blocks of licensed airtime from carriers and then resell it to end users, generally have been looked down on in the wireless industry. Even their trade organization, the Telecommunications Resellers Association, recently changed its name to the Association of Communications Enterprises, or Ascent, to get away from that dirty r-word. … Read More
EU warns U.S. not to stop VoiceStream-DT deal
The European Union warned the United States not to block Deutsche Telekom AG’s planned purchase of VoiceStream Wireless Corp., threatening a trans-Atlantic trade fight if federal regulators give into objections raised by Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) and others. The EU takes issue with Hollings’ view, expressed in comments on the proposed transfer of wireless licenses from VoiceStream Wireless to DT, that the acquisition would violate a U.S. law limiting firms more than 25-percent owed by foreign governments from acquiring American wireless companies. … Read More
Qualcomm develops open platform
In a move to transform itself into the chief platform enabler among software developers and carriers, Qualcomm Inc. has developed an open, CDMA-based technology that will allow third-party users to write applications for mobile phones from a variety of vendors. The product, known as Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless, seals nine months of experimenting and market-testing in an innovation the company believes will tear down the walls of proprietary technology and erase heartaches among software developers and carriers that have to write and adapt separate software products for each manufacturer’s device. … Read More
Nokia shifts production to Mexico, Korea
For phone maker Nokia Corp., 800 jobs will bite the dust as some of its production gravity moves out of the United States. In the same week it announced a record profit and reiterated warnings about handset sales, the Finland-based company said it is shifting some of its U.S. manufacturing in North Texas to Korea and Mexico to toughen its competitive muscle. Nokia said it made the decision because Korea, Mexico and Brazil have been the hub of increased manufacturing for the Americas region. … Read More
FCC to assess whether to eliminate analog set aside
The Federal Communications Commission said it will consider abolishing analog cellular technical rules that require cellular carriers to set aside a portion of their networks for the AMPS standard. “We accept staff’s recommendation to initiate a rule-making to review the Part 22 Cellular rules to consider which of these rules are obsolete because of competitive or technological development,” said the commission in its 2000 Biennial Review Report released Jan. 17. … Read More
Data, diversity challenge billing, CRM providers
A host of players behind the scenes is pulling the complex strings required to amplify and simplify the end-user experience with billing and customer relationship management for the increasing variety of wireless services. With six or seven operators in each major market, price no longer is a major differentiater, said Steven Rodin, co-founder and president of Davinci Technologies Inc., Toronto. Consequently, wireless data and Internet access, coupled with improved customer relationship management, are becoming important competitive advantages. … Read More
Rural carriers tag along as large players drive mobile location market
If we applied human attributes to mobile location services, they would be in preschool today, learning and acquiring the skills they will need to have a long and successful life in a world where bigger and tougher kids are always around the corner. While still young and impressionable, mobile location services hold tremendous revenue-generating potential for wireless carriers of all sizes. But for small to mid-size carriers that don’t have the geographical or financial muscle to get the attention of mobile location and telematics service providers up front, the task is proving to be more challenging. … Read More
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