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WASHINGTON-2001: A Space Odyssey? Perhaps if you’re working on the international space station or developing a Star Wars defense. But for wireless, it will be a year the industry comes back to earth and gets back to basics as carriers, …

WASHINGTON-There’s a reason the waning weeks of Congress are collectively called Silly Season. It is because anything is possible during this fall ritual, when lawmakers scramble-against all odds-to complete spending bills before the start of the new fiscal year and …

TOKYO-Multi Channel Access radio, Japan’s name for specialized mobile radio service, has been widely used by industries for allocating and controlling taxies and delivery trucks. But recently, these industries have begun using new technologies, such as packet data communications networks …

NEW YORK-The best is yet to be in the conjunction of wireless and the Internet, and that means plenty of opportunity, said Lior E. Yahalomi, managing partner of CMGI @Ventures. The Menlo Park, Calif., venture fund, established in 1995 to …

BANGALORE, India-Although the Indian cellular industry is growing quite well, with the country’s cumulative cellular subscriber base at 2.18 million at the end of June, operators are still hesitant to expand coverage outside high-density population centers. When the Department of …

NEW YORK-Amid the clutter of conflicting and shifting capital market indicators, the outlook for companies in any sector related to wireless telecommunications nevertheless appears positive. The daily whipsawing of the Nasdaq, where the stocks of many high technology companies trade, …

RESTON, Va.-Nextel Communications Inc. made several announcements regarding new content and services now available to its Nextel Online customers. Nextel said mobileID will deliver a subset of its personalized wireless Web services. MobileID enables customers to access information, such as …

NEW YORK-Andrew Seybold offered attendees of a recent New York New Media Association meeting this twice-told tale to illustrate how mobile data badly needs an application of common sense, that least common of all the senses. The respected wireless Web …

NEW YORK-In an interesting twist of fate, the country with the best landline telephone system in the world looks like the best market opportunity for fixed wireless services. By the end of 2004, The Strategis Group projects worldwide service revenues …

AT&T Wireless Group announced it entered agreements with Verizon Wireless to acquire wireless systems in San Diego, San Francisco and Houston for approximately $3.3 billion. “This is a critical move that gives us three systems … which cover a population …

An unspecified number of U S West shareholders filed a lawsuit against Qwest Communications International Inc. March 17, alleging Qwest deflated U S West stock prices through its recent merger negotiations with Deutsche Telekom AG, which are now defunct. The …

Since its exit from the highly competitive U.S. mobile handset market in late 1998, Siemens AG has vowed to return. The German manufacturer will make its comeback this summer, but to a mobile-phone market that is even more crowded and …

NEW ORLEANS-Siemens AG announced it will re-enter the U.S. mobile-phone market in 2001, about two years after it left the market unable to compete with rapidly falling handset prices in the United States. Siemens always has maintained its exit from …

MADRID, Spain-Vodafone AirTouch plc and British Telecommunications plc are negotiating a resolution to their battle for control of Airtel, Spain’s second-largest mobile provider. The negotiations could lead to an amicable BT exit from Airtel. In addition, Vodafone plans to use …

In a move designed to put the takeover of Iridium L.L.C.’s assets on the fast track, as well as appease disgruntled Iridium creditors, Craig McCaw and his team of investors have withdrawn the $74.6 million financing package submitted last week …

Is it a bird? A plane? No, it’s Craig McCaw, swooping in to rescue yet another struggling satellite wireless phone company-leading a group of investors to provide $74.6 million in interim financing for the bankrupt Iridium L.L.C. This is McCaw’s …

Two-way operators hope new technology aids capacity constraints. Traditional small two-way radio operators are hoping new technology can ease their capacity problems and offer more integrated services to their customers. “There is a real serious question whether smaller operators can …

BANGALORE, India-While the Indian cellular industry generally has been battling rough weather recently, one cellular operator in the country has adopted a strategy that seems to have paid off: focusing on quality rather than numbers. The carrier, BPL Mobile, may …

At the end of each year, the RCR editorial staff looks back on the news events that made RCR headlines and decides which were the most significant, industry-impacting stories of the past 12 months. Here are our picks for 1999 …

A U.S. bankruptcy court has given ICO Global Communications final approval for $500 million in financing from an investor group led by Craig McCaw and Indian media magnate Subhash Chandra, who had challenged McCaw with a competing financing bid. Under …

ICO Global Communications Ltd. received final commitments for the $1.2 billion in financing needed to finish building its satellite voice network from none other than cellular industry pioneer Craig McCaw. ICO announced at the end of October it had received …

The Big Three handset manufacturers-Nokia Corp., L.M. Ericsson and Motorola Inc.-continue their reign over the global wireless handset arena, together controlling more than two-thirds of the market. Nokia has emerged as the clear leader of the three. Analyst firm Herschel …

NEW YORK-As the Internet accelerates the globalization of telecommunications, mergers and acquisitions among traditional and nontraditional players have eclipsed initial public offerings as the preferred strategy for retaining competitive advantage. “In the United States, the Internet economy generated $301 billion …

BANGALORE, India-Foreign investors are reconsidering their investments in India, with press reports naming several European and U.S. companies lining up to back out of operations there. Swisscom, the Switzerland-based telecommunications operator, decided to pull out of its joint venture with …

SINGAPORE-After two years of bad debts and line terminations, wireless operators in the economically worst-hit Asian nations of Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia can finally look forward to better times ahead. Analysts say economic recovery combined with the growing …