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NEW YORK-A Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association group is developing recommendations for handset manufacturers that would reduce fraud potential and facilitate over-the-air customer activations for non-Global System for Mobile Communications carriers. The CTIA Fraud Technology Assessment Group, charged with evaluating and …

Global System for Mobile communications operators in Europe soon could face a formidable opponent for commercial business accounts if Canada’s Telesystem International Wireless Inc. follows through with its plans. The company has emerged not only as the dominant specialized mobile …

Italian telecommunications operator Telecom Italia has abandoned its plans to buy minority interests in certain global holdings of Cable & Wireless plc, the companies confirmed last week. The two have been working for three months to create a global alliance …

Qualcomm Qualcomm Inc. announced its shipment of samples for its fifth-generation chipset, including the MSM3000 single-chip Mobile Station Modem and the IFT3000 and IFR3000 fully integrated Intermediate Frequency chipset. The new low-power chipset and software solution enables design of small …

Though most are based on some form of wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology, the proposals submitted to the International Telecommunication Union last month suggest a tough road toward achieving the family of systems concept to allow for global roaming, …

With the lifespan of paging devices getting ever shorter, and with new advanced paging devices flooding the marketplace, paging carriers must be extra careful in their purchasing patterns. Kevin Reynolds, president and founder of PCS Maze Inc.-a wireless industry consulting …

Formed to take advantage of the current round of consolidation in the paging industry, a fairly new company announced its first purchase-the paging assets and operations of Bell Atlantic Corp. The New Jersey-based company has not yet come up with …

SUNNYVALE, Calif.-Conductus Inc. entered into an agreement to provide a cellular operator in Japan with a Japanese version of its ClearSite product to examine cellular coverage and radio-frequency interference. “We are very excited to be working with a company that …

NEW YORK-Citing “the weak state of the new issues public market,” Orbcomm Corp., Herndon, Va., announced July 2 it decided to postpone indefinitely its planned initial public offering of 7.6 million shares of stock at $15 to $18 each. The …

Now that the nation’s top wireless carrier and its second-largest cable TV company have announced plans to merge, industry watchers are speculating about how the companies might converge their networks. Dan Youmans, a spokesman for AT&T Wireless Services Inc., said …

DALLAS-Panafon, a mobile operator in Greece, awarded Aethos Communication Systems a $1.6 million contract to increase capacity of its prepaid platform to accommodate 300,000 subscribers. This is the second upgrade in nine months for Panafon, said Aethos.

OXFORD, United Kingdom-Investment in the telecommunications sector is an urgent priority for Central and Eastern European countries. Financial management consultant Price Waterhouse examined in a recent report the challenges of such investments for 12 countries in the region, representing a …

WASHINGTON-Mexico will receive US$1.06 billion, plus value-added tax, for Personal Communications Services (PCS) and Wireless Local Loop (WLL) spectrum auctioned in a six-month process completed 8 May. The Sistemas Profesionales de Comunicacion (SPC) consortium, Qualcomm Inc. with consortium partner Grupo …

TOKYO-IDO, a cellular operator covering the Kanto and Chubu regions of Japan, will market a 69-gram cellular terminal starting in mid-July, the company announced recently. While this is just the latest in a succession of increasingly lighter handsets sold in …

Brazil Brazilian B-band operator Americel will deploy Northern Telecom Ltd.’s (Nortel’s) Small Wireless Switch to fulfill its concession obligation of serving all state capitals in its coverage area within one year of operation. BCP S/A, Brazilian B-band operator for the …

OXFORD, United Kingdom-Originally scheduled for fall 1996, Italy’s third GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) license finally was awarded in June. The winning WIND consortium is 51-percent owned by the state-controlled electricity utility Enel, together with partners Deutsche Telekom and …

DUBLIN, Ireland-Contrary to most industry predictions, Meteor Mobile Communications has secured the third mobile license in the Republic of Ireland. Orange plc of the United Kingdom strongly was fancied to secure the country’s first combined GSM 900 license. The Meteor …

“If we delivered the same quality as in the U.K. or Germany, we would have zero subscribers in two weeks,” said Hakan Uzan, chief executive officer of Turkey’s second GSM network operator, Telsim. Speaking in Istanbul at the recent announcement …

BANGKOK, Thailand-The Asian financial crisis is imposing a brutal shakeout on the Thai telecommunications sector, turning Darwin’s law about the survival of the fittest into an apt description of the future state of the industry here. With the nation’s economic …

See page 7 for the results of Ireland and Italy’s recent tenders. Austria granted 900 MHz GSM licenses to Mobilcom, max.mobile and Connect Austria, a consortium including Tele Danmark. Recently formed Belgian wireless communications company KPN Orange Belgium N.V. was …

WASHINGTON-Brazilian Minister of Communications Luis Carlos Mendonca de Barros set the minimum price for the 12 Telebras system holding companies of US$11.7 billion for the 18.2-percent stake owned by the government. He expects the eight cellular companies to draw a …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-The debate of issuing a third or fourth cellular license in South Africa is gaining momentum, with the industry pressuring the government to speed up the tendering process before the existing operators become so powerful they would eliminate …

BEIJING-China Telecom is still very much a monopoly carrier in China, but change is on the horizon. By year-end, the new Ministry of Information Industry will have concluded its massive restructuring and finally may be ready to accept a sweeping …

MELBOURNE, Australia-Seven of the nine bidders won lots in Australia’s PCS (Personal Communications Services) spectrum auction, which raised almost A$350 million (US$218.5 million) for the federal government. Four winners-AAPT Wireless, Hutchison Telephone, OzPhone and Catapult Communications-were first-time entrants into the …

WASHINGTON-They announced it, delayed it, set deadlines and then extended them-each one of these at least once and often amid accusations of scandal and preferential treatment. Currently, the tender process for two 1.9 GHz PCS (Personal Communications Services) licenses to …