Mobile Phones

WASHINGTON-The Wireless Consumers Alliance Inc. this week plans to ask the Federal Communications Commission to rule that state courts are not pre-empted by federal law from awarding monetary damages against wireless carriers for misleading advertising, a liability issue with far-reaching …

United Kingdom British Telecommunications plc said it will buy Control Data Systems Inc., a software company based in Arden Hills, Minn., for $340 million. The purchase will expand British Telecom’s service offering. Control Data makes software that links programs from …

The wireless handset market has proven that a strong brand name doesn’t guarantee success. Sony Electronics Inc. announced last week it is pulling out of the North American handset business and terminating 200 jobs in San Diego. The well-known consumer …

WASHINGTON-Just days before going to trial last month, high-level Justice Department officials may have overruled government antitrust lawyers who appeared ready to make a strong case in federal court against lifting a 1995 consent decree imposed on Nextel Communications Inc. …

WASHINGTON-Republicans, seeing potentially dividing issues in 2000 and hoping to tap into the deep pockets of Digital America, are fighting Democrats for the heart and soul of the high-tech agenda in the next century. Days after Vice President and Democratic …

It stands to reason that if you know how to make mobile phones work, you can shut them down-say, like at gas stations or in airplanes, theaters and hospitals. That’s what a few ingenious Motorola Inc. inventors across the Atlantic …

Deutsche Telekom AG has about $18 billion at its disposal after its $11-billion secondary offering last week, and speculation is running high about what acquisitions it will make in Europe and the United States. “I will not name names today,” …

Asia-Pacific countries are beginning to emerge from the severe economic problems that have gripped them for two years, and mobile phone carriers are finding they desperately need cash to expand services. Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines took the hardest …

Latin America Cellular/personal communications services handset shipments to Latin America showed a significant technology shift from analog Advanced Mobile Phone Service to digital Time Division Multiple Access technology during the first three months of 1999, according to results from The …

TOKYO-Tokyo Telemessages Inc. (TTM), a paging company suffering from huge debts due to a sharp drop in customers because of strong competition from mobile phone operators, went bankrupt at the end of May. The beeper operator has debts of around …

Handsets Kyocera Kyocera plans to begin marketing at the end of July in Japan its VP-210 VisualPhone, a PHS phone with a built-in camera that can transmit and receive images in real time at a rate of two frames per …

BEIJING-China’s telecom scene is in flux. China Telecom is to split into four parts, which will compete in two year’s time. China Unicom took over four experimental CDMA networks from China Telecom Great Wall and is making aggressive plans to …

WASHINGTON-The close of the six-year, US$27 million Wireless Technology Research program in the United States has re-energized a public debate about whether mobile telephones cause cancer or pose other health problems to the nation’s 70 million wireless subscribers. Indeed, WTR …

DUBLIN, Ireland-One of the most common complaints from telecommunications companies competing with former monopoly operators is cross-subsidization by the incumbent, particularly in countries where the incumbent also controls a major cellular operator. However, regulators across Europe have been tackling this …

Albania Albania said it plans to issue a public tender to sell a majority stake in Albanian Mobile Communications, the sole cellular provider in the country. The government also plans to offer a license for a second GSM operator at …

Health scares are all the rage in Europe this summer. It’s not just mad cow disease. The detection of dioxin in some animal feeds has removed many foodstuffs from the shelves. Millions of cans of Coke have been withdrawn following …

SINGAPORE-Singapore Telecom is looking to roll out extensive mobile phone services in the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) region as it leverages its investments in Thailand and the Philippines. SingTel, which holds a 20-percent stake in Thailand’s Advanced …

DENVER, United States-A new battery-system invention coming on the market can boost customer satisfaction, make mobile phones more powerful and create higher revenue for carriers, the system’s creator company believes. U.S.-based Enrev Corp., formerly called Advanced Charger Technology Inc., has …

Global Mobility Systems has partnered with Internet infrastructure company InfoSpace.com to provide Internet content to wireless phones using Global Mobility’s @mobile Internet portal. Under the agreement, InfoSpace.com will deliver Web content and interactive Internet services to national wireless carriers, said …

WASHINGTON-While 911, encryption and commercial space launch bills advanced in Congress last week, other wireless-related bills remain steeped in controversy and uncertainty. As important as 911, encryption, commercial space launch, privacy, private wireless, rural cellular and other initiatives are, the …

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.-Phone.com Inc. revealed that Italian Global System for Mobile communications operator Omnitel Spa has licensed Phone.com’s UP.Link Server Suite for its new Omnitel 2000 Internet portal. The Wireless Application Protocol solution will allow WAP-enabled mobile phones to access …

SEATTLE- Tegic Communications, a company that specializes in text entry solutions for wireless devices, signed a licensing agreement with NEC Corp., which allows NEC to integrate the company’s T9 Text Input software into its wireless phones. Tegic’s T9 Text Input …

WASHINGTON-David Aaron, undersecretary of Commerce for international trade, told wireless executives last week the Clinton administration intends to press the European Union to affirm a carrier compromise on harmonizing competing Code Division Multiple Access standards for third-generation mobile phones. Aaron, …

SAN FRANCISCO-Telstra Corp. Ltd. in Australia will extend its Code Division Multiple Access mobile phone network to include country locations currently covered by Telstra’s Global System for Mobile communications network, but lacking in analog coverage, said the company. “Telstra’s first …

WASHINGTON-In one way or another, Dale N. Hatfield has been connected to the wireless industry as a telecom policy maker, a consultant, an academic and now back full circle as chief of the Office of Engineering Technology at the Federal …