AT&T

U.S. factory sales of telecommunications equipment during the first half of the year rose by 13.1 percent compared with last year, to more than $36.6 billion, said the Telecommunications Industry Association. TIA’s figures were based on statistics compiled by the …

JAPAN NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc. filed applications with Japan’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications seeking approval for an international call service based on a service agreement between NTT DoCoMo and AT&T Corp. NTT DoCoMo has established a network directly …

Global Mobility Systems Inc., a provider of software for enhanced services, has created a professional services group to help mobile phone operators with their business and marketing needs. The company, led by former AT&T Wireless Services Inc. executive Michael Buhrmann, …

Airadigm Communications Inc. signed a contract to sell its entire tower inventory to SpectraSite Communications Inc., said the companies. The purchase price was not disclosed. The contract also includes a provision calling for SpectraSite to build about 125 additional towers …

I saw two stories over the news wire this week that made me wonder if wireless is heading the way of smoking as far as being labeled a public nuisance. The first story was about how British Railways is planning …

NEW YORK-As mergers among telecommunications giants tear around the track at breathtaking speed, it may seem that domestic deregulation, intended to promote competition, has instead achieved consolidation. However, a glance in the rear-view mirror reveals a bevy of new competitive …

NEW YORK-Moody’s Investors Service has assigned a speculative grade rating of B2 to a proposed $1.21 billion in secured credit facilities that will be used to fund Centennial Cellular Corp.’s buyout and recapitalization by Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and …

NEW YORK-After dramatically reducing the size and price of its initial public offering, Crown Castle International Corp., a Houston-based wireless tower company, sold 14 million shares at $13 each Aug. 18. The company had registered June 19 with the Securities …

AT&T Wireless Services Inc.’s Advanced Messaging Division introduced two new services last week-a guaranteed delivery service and a nationwide paging alternative. The first, called AlphaTrack, is a guaranteed-messaging service reselling SkyTel Communications Inc.’s ReFLEX 50 network airtime. This is the …

DALLAS-Mobile Systems International announced that MSI Americas sold eight Planet network design software and service licenses to TeleCorp PCS Inc. to help the company plan its network buildout. TeleCorp is a large AT&T Wireless Services Inc. affiliate. The company plans …

The emergence of personal communications services providers is putting the often-tenuous relationship between carriers and resellers to the test in more ways than one. PCS once was viewed as the next area where resale would be used widely to increase …

DALLAS-Northern Telecom Ltd. and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. said they will jointly develop and market enhancements to Nortel’s Companion Microcellular system, a digital wireless private branch exchange, to deliver Wireless Office Service from AWS in building and campus environments. The …

CINCINNATI-Cincinnati Bell Wireless announced that it expanded its southwest Ohio operating region by launching personal communications services in Dayton. The launch coincides with the opening of four new Cincinnati Bell Wireless retail outlets. The launch is being coordinated through a …

The recent commercial launch of PageMart Wireless Inc.’s facilities-based ReFLEX 25 narrowband personal communications services network has heralded in the new age of paging, in which all major paging players will operate some type of two-way network. SkyTel Communications Inc. …

In the past year, paging companies have engineered a striking makeover designed to change their “look” to better meet the business style of the new millennium. Just as the parachute pants and spiked haircuts of the 1980s are out and …

NEW YORK-Convergys Corp. scaled back and sold an initial public offering Aug. 12 that is the prelude to its spinoff from Cincinnati Bell Inc. Convergys sold 13 million shares of common stock at $15 each through an underwriting syndicate, jointly …

While many of its second-tier cellular counterparts have been acquired during the last year in an increasingly consolidated industry, Greensboro, N.C.-based Vanguard Cellular Systems Inc. may continue to go it alone. Speculation about potential financial and strategic buyers for Vanguard …

WASHINGTON-Saying he was responding to constituent complaints about non-itemized billing, Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.) recently introduced legislation requiring all commercial mobile radio service providers to itemize customer bills. This itemization is to include: the date, origination time, origination and destination …

WASHINGTON-An agreement between GTE Corp. and AirTouch Paging, signed earlier this month, is a good example of how the telecommunications industry can work with “regulatory guidance but without regulatory fiat,” said Rob Hoggarth, senior vice president for paging and messaging …

As part of this week’s paging special report, RCR explores people’s love-hate relationship with technology. It’s an interesting read, and it certainly has caused me to wonder if the wireless industry is shifting from a time when it was perceived …

The first half of this year has produced several landscape-changing events in the wireless industry. If completed, the proposed mergers between SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp. could put several significant cellular markets …

NEW YORK-Celumovil S.A., Bogota, Colombia, plans to raise $680 million by a private debt sale and a revolving bank loan to refinance outstanding debt and fund capital expenses and customer-acquisition costs. Bavaria, a diversified Colombian industrial conglomerate, owns 86 percent …

NEW YORK-Amid a broader trend of increasing mergers and decreasing initial public offerings among information technology, communications and media companies, carriers seized both options with gusto during the first six months of this year. The number of individual IPOs in …

New studies indicate cellular and personal communications services operators are beginning to segment the market by means of pricing. A survey from Toronto Dominion Securities in New York indicates cellular carriers such as AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and GTE Wireless …

GREENSBORO, N.C.-Vanguard Cellular Systems Inc. signed a multiyear strategic partnership with Metrocall Inc. for paging service development and distribution and closed its purchase of another paging carrier. Vanguard plans to buy and install paging transmitters on Metrocall networks in areas …