E.F. Johnson Co. and Motorola Inc.’s Land Mobile Products sector said they will submit a proposal to build a new digital, trunked 800 MHz public safety radio system for the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. E.F. Johnson said the Metropolitan Radio Board, a group of public safety communications professionals and representatives from the local government, have spent six years analyzing the need for a new system because the current two-way radio systems are incompatible and have limited capacity.
Mobile Telecommunication Technologies Corp. reached an agreement in principle with its bank group on the terms of an amendment to its existing $250 million revolving credit facility. The amendment will allow Mtel the flexibility to execute its three-year business plan, the company said. The amendment also revises certain operational and financial covenants. The agreement should be completed before the end of this month, Mtel said.
The National Dispatch Center Inc. is providing operator-assisted text messaging services for Pacific Bell Mobile Services’ personal communications services network. Callers are connected to an NDC operator when they are unable to reach a subscriber. The operator takes the message and forwards it to the user’s phone. Pacific Bell debuted its PCS service in San Diego during the Republican National Convention in August, and the system became commercially available in San Diego in November.
NPI Wireless, a division of Noverr Publishing Inc., selected Northern Telecom Ltd. to supply infrastructure equipment for its Global System for Mobile communications personal communications services network. NPI holds licenses to provide PCS in Traverse City and Petoskey, Mich. Nortel values the three-year agreement at $20 million.
Ortel Corp. announced it will supply Microcell Connexions Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Microcell Telecommunications Inc., with its advanced line of wireless repeater products for personal communications services network deployment throughout Canada. According to the agreement, Ortel will supply Microcell Connexions with channel selective repeaters, one of Ortel’s MirrorCell repeater products.
Raytheon Co.’s Microelectronics unit was selected by Qualcomm Personal Electronics to provide radio frequency components for Qualcomm’s cellular and personal communications services handsets. Raytheon is shipping upconverters, used to convert low frequency signals to higher frequencies for clear transmission to the base stations of wireless communications systems. One type of upconverter will be used in handsets for Qualcomm’s dual-mode cellular system based on Code Division Multiple Access technology, while the other upconverter will be used in handsets for CDMA PCS, the company said.
