BROWSING: Vodafone

GENEVA-Despite a subdued initial public offering (IPO) that saw the company reap a modest US$9 per share-near the bottom end of an already hastily reduced US$8.7 to US$10 range-the future is looking good for Orange, the former U.K. operator that now forms the cornerstone...

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...

According to recent reports, wireless gaming is spreading nearly as fast as computer viruses pretending to be pictures of tennis stars. By 2005, more than 200 million wireless phone users in the United States and Europe, 80 percent of all wireless customers, will play...

NTT DoCoMo, announced that it set the public offering prices for new shares at $17,500 per share for 400,000 shares. If the additional 60,000 shares are issued at the same price, the issue amount will total $8.1 billion, the firm said. The payment due...

NEW YORK-Borrowing the vernacular of a traffic engineer, a financier compared the current capital market conditions for telecommunications companies to rush-hour congestion, but observed that the tie-up looks like it is slowly beginning to clear.Investors still are sorting out a host of concerns that...

LONDON-Vodafone plc denied reports that it plans to delay its planned flotation of U.S. joint venture Verizon Wireless, saying it is simply waiting for market conditions to improve. The Times of London reported Vodafone is planning a delay from its end of March time...

Wireless service providers offering analog phone service to their subscribers are forced to walk a fine line between alienating established customers who rely on analog service and the increased profitability possible from value-added services offered on digital networks.As carriers acknowledge, analog service is still...

PARIS-Austrian mobile operator Tele.ring launched GPRS services networkwide, according to Alcatel, which supplied the equipment. Tele.ring is owned 100 percent by Vodafone Group plc. Tele.ring is the first Austrian operator to launch GPRS services, Alcatel said.

KARLSKRONA, Sweden-Europolitan and Hi3G, two companies granted Universal Mobile Telecommunications System licenses in Sweden last year, agreed to jointly build part of their UMTS infrastructure.The companies will form a common entity designated to build and provide UMTS infrastructure, mainly outside the three major metropolitan...

Most analysts expected the Federal Communications Commission's auction of 422 personal communications services licenses to finish up late last week. Instead, there were 37 eligible bidders placing 27 new high bids on licenses during round 70 of the auction. The new high bids brought...

DUBLIN, Ireland-When companies with international aspirations make their cases for being allowed to own mobile networks across a number of countries, one argument put forward is that pan-European operators will hasten the standardization and even reduction of roaming call charges. However, developments to date...

BulgariaOte Telecom won Bulgaria's third mobile-phone license for US$135 million, beating out Telecom Italia Mobile through an auction. Ote plans to partner with Bulgarian Telecommunications Co. (BTC), the country's fixed-line provider, to build out the GSM network.FranceMartin Bouygues, chairman of Bouygues Telecom, called on...

MELBOURNE, Australia-In a part of the world that still relies on word of mouth as a means to keep in touch, cellular communications-both digital and analog-is continuing to spread through the Pacific Islands as greater numbers of people in the region adjust to using...

MEXICO CITY-U.K.-based Vodafone Group purchased a 34.5-percent stake in Iusacell, Mexico's second-largest mobile operator, in an effort to expand into the Latin American wireless market, according to international press reports. The US$973.4 million purchase was made from Grupo Peralta, the firm that introduced Mexico...

PARIS-France Telecom announced plans to float up to 15 percent of its mobile subsidiary, Orange SA, in an effort to reduce its debt. The float will take place by the end of January on the Paris and London stock exchanges. The company also said...

LONDON-Hutchison Whampoa plc is selling $2.5 billion in exchangeable notes, which can be converted for part of its 3.47-percent stake in Vodafone Group plc, according to international press reports. Vodafone's share price slipped on the news.Hutchison obtained a 5.2-percent stake in Vodafone when the...

WASHINGTON-Baltimore superlawyer Peter Angelos confirmed he may take over mobile phone-cancer litigation in Maryland that was dealt a major legal setback recently, but he distanced himself from press reports last week that said his law firm intended to file lawsuits around the country against...

MELBOURNE, Australia-The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) will hold the keenly awaited auction of third-generation (3G) spectrum in the 2 GHz radio-frequency band in early March.The new 3G mobile services are expected to combine popular communications forms, such as mobile phones, the Internet and computers,...

LISBON, Portugal-Portugal's Institute for Communications of Portugal awarded four Universal Mobile Telecommunications System licenses.The license winners are the country's three incumbent mobile carriers-TMN, owned by Portugal Telecom; Telecel, majority owned by Vodafone Group plc; and Optimus, in which France Telecom has a stake. The...

The millennium is off to a good start for Vodafone Group.The U.K.-based carrier began 2000 with a hostile takeover of Mannesmann, parent of its rival Orange, and continued with a spending spree for third-generation (3G) licenses across Europe. The year also marked the finalization...

At the end of each year, the RCR Wireless News editorial staff looks back on the new 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 2000 in chronological...

TOKYO-KDDI, the sole cdmaOne operator in Japan, has been expanding its international roaming services, fully using its universally standardized cdmaOne technology.In January, KDDI launched international roaming services in Canada in cooperation with Telus Mobility, a major Canadian carrier. Canada will become the fifth country...

HOUSTON-Crown Castle International Corp.'s Australian subsidiary will purchase 669 wireless communications towers for about $130 million from Vodafone Australia.The deal, expected to close in the second quarter of next year, will bring Crown Castle's number of towers in the country to 1,400. The company...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden-Vodafone Group plc and Ireland's Eircom plc reached an agreement calling for Vodafone to acquire the business of Eircell, Eircom's mobile operator, for about $4.1 billion in stock.According to the deal, Eircell will be demerged from Eircom into a newly incorporated company, Eircell...