BEIJING-While China's mobile-phone subscribers nearly doubled to 85.26 million last year, the country's paging manufacturers and operators fought a rearguard battle. With continuing price drops in handsets and mobile services, more pager users are switching to mobile phones.The number of subscribers at China's major...
BEIJING-Huawei Technologies, based in China's southern boomtown of Shenzhen, is poised to become a global player in the telecommunications field. Already China's largest producer of telephone switches, the company is now branching out into the mobile field and aggressively moving abroad. While privately owned,...
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-The many delays that have beset South Africa's third mobile network license process could be at an end. In February, the Minister of Communications Dr. Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri announced the winner was the Saudi Oger-financed Cell C consortium, despite the fact that a...
What is the future of the TDMA wireless interface? The issue is far from trivial. TDMA serves more than 60 million digital and 15 million analog customers and stands as the number-one technology in terms of subscribers, operators and coverage in the Americas. Moreover,...
TORONTO-The move was surprising but not totally unexpected. After many denials, U.S. carrier AT&T Wireless finally announced last November it is switching from TDMA wireless technology to the rival European-developed standard GSM technology. Moving in lock step, Rogers AT&T Wireless of Toronto, Canada's largest...
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN), the South African mobile network operator, recently secured one of four mobile operator licenses in Nigeria. The network must pay a license fee of US$285 million, which could be regarded as either reasonable or overpriced, based on various...
DUBLIN, Ireland-Having paid so much for their licenses, prospective third-generation (3G) mobile operators in Germany, as in other European countries, have been working hard to convince the financial markets and the rest of the industry that they will make a decent return on their...
TOKYO-Mobile Internet shopping is no longer a futuristic idea, but a daily practice, at least for early adopters in the browser phone-advanced nation of Japan.The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications estimates the Japanese mobile-commerce market will expand from 4.2 billion yen (US$35.8 million) in...
SAN JOSE, California, United States-Top executives from several multichannel multipoint distribution services (MMDS) operators throughout Latin America announced the creation of Latin American Networking (LaNet), an alliance formed to advance MMDS networks and services in that part of the world.The alliance's founding members include...
HandsetsSendoEuropean mobile phone manufacturer, Sendo, launched its second product platform, the S200 dual-band GSM mobile phone. Aimed at the young-at-heart prepaid market, features of the small and light phone include a variety of colors, short message service (SMS) picture messaging, ring-tone sharing and games....
BelgiumBelgium awarded three Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) licenses to each of the country's three incumbent operators, bringing in about US$419 million for the government. The prices raised were just at the minimum prices set by the government. The auction ended after just one...
BOSTON, United States-As the South African telecommunications industry prepares to map out the legal future of communications in the country, Telecom Namibia said it fears no competition when its own market is liberalized.Speaking at the African Convergence conference in Rosebank, South Africa, Telecom Namibia...
GSM Europe, the European arm of the GSM Association, met new proposals from the European Commission (EC) covering how telecom operators will be regulated with hostility. The group claimed the proposals will significantly increase the chances of EC intervention in many aspects of the...
AlcatelEgypt. With MobiNil for an extension of its GSM network.Value: US$37.1 millionFrance. With Cegetel for the supply of a UMTS network.Value: UndisclosedEricssonCanada. With Rogers AT&T Wireless for a 3G network, including a complete GSM/GPRS network infrastructure and migrating the network to EDGE and UMTS.Value: UndisclosedPortugal. With Optimus...
WASHINGTON-The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association last Friday filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming regulations aimed at historic preservation "favor intensive government oversight and unwieldy bureaucratic procedures."The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, focuses on regulations recently promulgated...
BERWYN, Pa.-Triton PCS Holdings Inc. said it raised about $112 million through its offering of 6 million shares of company stock.Proceeds from the offering will be used for the expansion of the company's network buildout, spectrum acquisition, working capital and general corporate purposes, according...
HONG KONG-Nokia has signed a contract with CLP Power Hong Kong Limited (CLP Power) to supply an 800 MHz TETRA system which includes digital exchanges, base stations, dispatcher equipment, a network management system and terminals.TETRA networks will strengthen CLP Power's operational communications by integrating...
NORWAY-Telenor Mobile Communications, a Norwegian mobile operator, appointed Allgon Systems, a global supplier of radio-based infrastructure solutions, its exclusive supplier of GSM repeaters.According to the agreement, Allgon Systems will supply TMC with standard and compact repeaters, band selective and channel selective repeaters and associated...
As technologies duel and markets discriminate, the impression is growing that TDMA will roll over in the dust trail and exhaust fumes of GSM and CDMA as both whistle past into the next generation of technologies. But advocates of TDMA technology are quick to...
CANNES, France-Sun Microsystems Inc. and Openwave Systems Inc. announced they will be working together to accelerate the delivery of end-to-end mobile Internet services solutions.The companies said they plan to jointly test and optimize interoperability among their infrastructure products. Specifically, Sun and Openwave said they...
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.-Nextel Communications Inc. Wireless Web Service customers will now have access to CBS SportsLine.com content thanks to an agreement between the two companies.SportsLine.com will provide access to up-to-date coverage of a wide variety of sports on Nextel phones with the latest scores,...
ATLANTA-Southern LINC released a new version of My LINC, which the company said will allow customers to connect directly to Web sites providing relevant business information. The company's customers previously had to use a branded portal.
Microsoft Corp. threw its rather large hat in the wireless arena at last week's 3GSM World Congress, announcing plans to launch software aimed at multimedia-enabled phones that leverage its Windows-based software.Microsoft said the smart phone platform, code named "Stinger," is built on a version...
Qualcomm Inc. has rolled out a CDMA mobile station modem integrated circuits and system software to facilitate global roaming.The product, which belongs to what Qualcomm calls the MSM6xxx family, supports multimode, multiband second- and third-generation technologies."It is the first wireless handset family to leverage...
