Congress moved to ensure planned PCS spectrum auction is held by year-end, while PCS spectrum holders mulled technology choices … 21 years ago this week
Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the top headlines from the past. Fire up the time machine, put on the sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and enjoy the memories!
Congress intervenes on auction to try to ensure it is held this year
Congress, in a move that has raised constitutional questions, is pushing legislation that would end entrepreneur block auction litigation and open the way for the sale of more personal communications services licenses in early December. A provision in a House Commerce Committee plan to raise $14 billion from spectrum auctions over the next seven years would ratify competitive bidding rules that became race- and gender-neutral after the Supreme Court in June curbed affirmative action. Those auction guidelines, currently the subject of various lawsuits, would become the law of the land. … Read More
Picking proper PCS technology is weighty choice for operators
Nearly half of the 20 companies holding licenses for broadband personal communications services have made firm technology decisions, but others continue the difficult task of weighing options. “It is like building 10 years of cellular all at once,” said Jack Finlayson, vice president and general manager of Motorola Inc.’s Pan American markets division. Launching a PCS system is complex. There is no equipment operating at 1.9 GHz anywhere in the United States. Equipment for 1.9 GHz is only now being manufactured. But that doesn’t pose too much of a hurdle because 800 MHz cellular equipment can be manufactured to operate at 1.9 without great difficulty, Finlayson said. … Read More
American Messaging compete with two-way paging capability
Paging operators using an Israeli technology can plug a spread-spectrum return path into their present systems to facilitate low-end, two-way paging at a fraction of the cost of full two-way infrastructure and without purchasing a narrowband license, according to American Messaging Services. Dallas-based American Messaging Services has been licensed by Nexus Telecommunication Systems Ltd. of Israel to bring the Israeli spread-spectrum, frequency hopping technology to the U.S. paging market. Equipment should be available and some build-outs may be possible by mid-year 1996. American Messaging Services is an equal joint venture between Nexus and Minneapolis-based American Paging Inc. American Messaging will market the technology, develop applications and create distribution channels. … Read More
PCS should just give relocation a fair chance, say encumbents
For more than 30 years, microwave communications systems have been used by utilities, oil and gas pipeline companies, railroads and municipalities to provide basic services to the American public including energy and transportation services, heating, air conditioning, power and fuel. Even public-safety agencies rely on microwave communications to provide police, fire, ambulance and other public-safety services. In a very real sense, the continued safety and reliability of our country’s infrastructure depends on microwave systems licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. Many of them operate in the 2 GHz Band. Any displacement of these systems from the 2 GHz band will be extremely disruptive, and it will be costly. Nevertheless, the FCC has decided that this band must be “cleared.” … Read More
Competition and safety among merits of voice recognition use
Fueled by increasing safety concerns and customer demand, the cellular market has become the fastest-growing segment for speech-recognition use in the United States, according to industry analysts. Being able to command a cellular phone to “call office”-instead of requiring users to fumble for their handsets during rush hour stop-and-go, look down from the bumper of the car ahead and punch in a long string of numbers-is becoming an increasingly popular feature. After years of uncertainty about the technology, new capabilities and higher accuracy rates have put speech recognition in the driver’s seat. Cellular carriers, including Ameritech Cellular Services, AT&T Wireless Services, Cellular One and SBC Communications Inc., now have deployed network-based voice-activated dialing systems in more than 40 cities across the country. … Read More
38 GHz technology gets chance to prove its purpose with PCS
The latest step in the continuing march toward ever higher radio frequencies, 38 GHz point-to-point digital services, is providing a set of interesting, unique products. The 38 GHz technology has been proven in Europe and now a few American companies are introducing it and a variety of its applications in the United States. Personal communications services backbone offerings such as transport of messages from microcell to microcell, repeaters, network hubs and mobile telephone switching offices are some of the more important applications of the technology. Recently, regulatory factors and advanced technology have combined to make 38 GHz a valuable telecommunications solution. … Read More
PCS trailblazers take risks for chance at bountiful market
Two observations can be drawn from the recent personal communications services license auctions. First, PCS participants are willing to assume enormous financial risk, on the order of tens of billions of dollars-an unprecedented level of risk-taking by the telecommunications industry-for license acquisition and network development costs. Second, each of the PCS participants has committed, or soon will commit, to a digital wireless modulation technique among an alphabet soup of options: CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), up-banded GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) and various “hybrids.” Clearly the latter is an attempt to mitigate the risk of the former, but the digital technology choice by itself does not suffice to justify the economic gamble. The question for PCS participants is: What else in the realm of prudent management and technology preparedness should PCS participants do to significantly further reduce risk? … Read More
APC relates struggles, triumphs as it brings PCS to Washington
The road to launching the first commercial personal communications services network in the United States, which American Personal Communications plans to do this fall, began at the Personal Communications Industry Association (then called Telocator) annual convention in Washington, D.C., in 1989. It is fitting that APC is on the verge of launching its system six years later as PCIA again meets for its annual convention. Back in 1989, the concept of PCS was virtually unknown in this country and I was intrigued by a presentation on a European-based technology called CT2 (cordless telephones, second generation) and a more robust concept called personal communications network, which is what the United Kingdom calls its new-generation wireless service. … Read More
East coast fights phone fraud with Bell Atlantic Nynex mobile
Incidents of cloning fraud and associated revenue loss have dropped more than 80 percent in Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile’s cellular markets since the company started aggressively using personal identification numbers and implementing other fraud control measures, said Nick Arcuri, the company’s vice president of fraud control. In fact, 4,000 cases of cloning fraud were reported in January, and less than 500 cases were reported in July, stated Arcuri. Likewise, the amount of money lost due to cellular fraud – which can vary between about $500 and $1,500 per case – has decreased more than 80 percent in the same period. … Read More
Government plans wireless role for information superhighway
The structure of the wireless telecommunications industry will be in a constant state of flux for the near future due to evolving regulatory, technological and economic changes, according to a new government report. Nevertheless, according to Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment, the role of wireless technology in the National Information Infrastructure – the network of networks also called the information superhighway – is expected to be significant but in ways not yet fully understood. … Read More
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