Qualcomm asks FCC for quick award of 700 MHz spectrum, while House telecom subcommittee Chairman Tauzin claims FCC corrupted by shakedowns … 17 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!
Qualcomm drives for 700 MHz spectrum
Qualcomm Inc. on Friday officially asked the Federal Communications Commission to grant it spectrum in the upcoming channel 60-69 auctions. Qualcomm wants the commission to quickly award it spectrum to make up for the pioneer’s preference license it repeatedly denied Qualcomm in the last decade and fears the commission will run out of immediate remedies. A U.S. appeals court in July ordered the FCC to swiftly find spectrum comparable to the Miami major trading area license, a license Qualcomm had hoped to gain in 1993 to help early adoption of its pioneering technology, cdmaOne. … Read More
Tauzin: FCC corrupted by shakedowns
House telecommunications subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.), attempting to play off GOP tax-cut and anti-big-government campaign themes, said he will push legislation this year to kill the telecom excise tax, to further deregulate the wireless industry and to downsize a Federal Communications Commission he said is corrupted by shakedowns. “I think the FCC has been an enabler of corruption and we need to fix that,” Tauzin told RCR in a phone interview Friday from Louisville, Ky. Tauzin did not offer any examples of FCC shakedowns. … Read More
Lines between messaging and wireless data blur
Perhaps the greatest indicator of the wireless data industry’s rise to popularity is the way paging carriers are positioning themselves in the space today. Pioneering wireless data carriers like American Mobile Satellite Corp. and BellSouth Wireless Data L.P. started the trend by offering paging-like services aimed at business users in a bid to jump-start their lackluster vertical market businesses. … Read More
Execs differ on where wireless traffic will migrate
With predictions that data-particularly e-commerce-will shape the industry’s future, the big question is which enterprise network will handle the most wireless traffic in the New Millennium. Will it be a network based on Internet Protocol or on voice-friendly circuit-switched network technology? Or something else? The answer, which has major implications for the wireless industry, was the subject of debate last week between Michael Myers, product marketing director at Lucent Technologies Inc., and Berge Ayvazian, executive vice president of The Yankee Group at the ComNet conference here last week. … Read More
Business customers keep paging alive, mass market prefers cellular
A division, not an exclusion, of interests seems to be emerging between cellular and paging services. Business customers are keeping the paging market in check while the cellular phone continues to be the preferred device for personal use. These trends and others were revealed in The Strategis Group’s “CellTrac: Cellular and PCS Consumer Trends,” and “PageTrac: Consumer Trends in Paging” reports, released last Thursday. … Read More
Migrating to 1XRTT smart move for cdmaOne operators
The business case for cdmaOne operators to migrate to 1XRTT technology is a no-brainer since carriers will have the luxury of doubling their voice capacity and experimenting with high-speed data services, said The Strategis Group’s wireless analyst John Dorfman in a conference call last week. Dorfman, outlining a study assessing the 2.5-generation and 3G market in the United States, said Global System for Mobile communications and Time Division Multiple Access operators, on the other hand, are betting on demand for high-speed data services when they roll out EDGE, or Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution, by around 2002. EDGE will not give carriers any extra voice capacity. … Read More
Vodafone AirTouch charts Internet plan
In what has been called primarily a preening gesture for Mannesmann AG shareholders, Vodafone AirTouch plc announced plans last week to launch an Internet portal designed for wireless Internet and mobile data services, delivering data, audio, graphics and video to wireless devices. The company expects to release version 1.0 of the portal in July in North America, Europe and Australia. It will carry its own individual brand, to be announced upon commercial launch. Vodafone AirTouch said it would make the portal available to all network operator partners, as well as license it to carriers in other markets where applicable. … Read More
WAP interoperability increasing concern
As the United States gears up for the commercial launch of Wireless Application Protocol services, the question of interoperability between WAP vendors has become an increasing concern to carriers looking to offer Internet-based services on a variety of handsets. WAP exists as a standard that should allow a phone equipped with a Nokia Corp. microbrowser to access services through a WAP server from Phone.com. At one point, analysts and carriers said there was some difficulty achieving this. … Read More
NextWave: Next stop is court
NextWave Telecom Inc. at RCR press time was expected to file papers with the bankruptcy court asking Judge Adlai S. Hardin Jr. to explicitly declare that any attempt by the Federal Communications Commission to cancel and/or re-auction its 90 personal communications service licenses without first seeking relief from the bankruptcy court violates federal law. On Wednesday, the FCC cited a federal appeals court ruling and canceled the 63 C-block and 27 F-block licenses and scheduled a re-auction for July 26. … Read More
30 MHz of spectrum set aside for auction
The Federal Communications Commission will auction 30 megahertz of spectrum being made available with the transition to digital TV for advanced fixed and mobile wireless services, but is looking for more advice on what to do with the six megahertz of spectrum set aside to protect public safety. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association said it found the decision troubling. The government is transitioning channels 60-69 (746-806 MHz) from TV use to other areas. Twenty-four megahertz was allocated for public-safety uses and 36 megahertz was set aside for commercial purposes. The 100 broadcasters still in this band will be protected from interference until the transition to digital TV is complete. … Read More
Check out RCR Wireless News’ Archives for more stories from the past.
