Wireless Services

MOUNTAIN LAKES, N.J.-Omnipoint Communications Inc., a personal communications services operator, will expand its “friendly user” network trial by several hundred people in the New York City metropolitan area. The users will test such things as proper network coverage and voice …

The broadband personal communications services auctions held during the past two years have spawned a plethora of novel policy and fiscal issues for policymakers. The reason: $20 billion. Money changes everything, even in ways not altogether obvious. Federal regulators will …

CINCINNATI, Ohio-Cincinnati Bell Information Systems Inc. will provide billing services to AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and the Cellular One joint venture through the year 2001. Under the contract, Cincinnati Bell will transfer wireless services data it processes to AT&T’s bundled …

NEW YORK-Pacific Bell Mobile Services has signed a three-year contract to purchase WinStar Communications Inc.’s Wireless Fiber service capabilities. Pacific Bell said it expects increasing demands for T-1 and DS-3 lines, which have greater capacity for voice, data and video …

Motorola Inc.’s Asia Pacific Cellular Infrastructure Group has signed a contract valued at more than $100 million to deploy a fixed wireless telephone network in the Philippines. Motorola said the network will supply service in the southern and western Mindanao …

OLYMPIA, Wash.-Illuminet and Columbia Spectrum Management said they are helping small personal communications services providers clear spectrum using Columbia Spectrum’s services. PCS license winners must relocate microwave systems that currently occupy spectrum allocated to PCS by the Federal Communications Commission. …

NEW YORK-PriCellular Wireless Corp. plans to issue $140 million in senior unsecured debt, mostly to finance its acquisition of four clustered rural cellular properties in Kentucky from Horizon Cellular Group. PriCellular, based in New York, agreed to pay $116.5 million …

J.D. Power and Associates appointed Joanne Codella its new manager of wireless services. Her responsibilities will include managing syndicated and proprietary customer satisfaction studies in the wireless industry. Codella worked for AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Panasonic Cellular before joining …

NEW YORK-Cellular subscribers said they are most satisfied with customer service from AT&T Wireless Services Inc., according to J.D. Power and Associates’ second annual survey of customer satisfaction in the cellular telecommunications sector. AT&T’s move to market services as AT&T …

AT&T Wireless Services Inc. is pushing its PBX-connected, digital microcellular in-building wireless system, saying it sees a 40 percent compounded annual growth rate for the business market. “There are about 86 million business telephones in use in the United States,” …

Andres Link and Richard Swerdlow met three years ago playing basketball in Miami, and began discussing business opportunities. Last month, the University of Florida named the pair’s partnership, Cellular Works, the fastest growing company in the state. Based in Hollywood, …

ORLANDO, Fla.-GTE Telecommunication Services Inc. has teamed up with T-Netix to evaluate T-Netix’s speaker verification technology, an authorization system for subscribers roaming outside their home calling area. The technology allows a digitized sample of a person’s voice to be stored …

Air-to-ground communications may give people an added incentive to fly this holiday season. GTE Airfone Inc. of Oak Brook, Ill., has introduced its $25 holiday card that will allow users to make an unlimited number of domestic and international calls …

The wireless industry is primed to woo holiday shoppers this season to their stable of products, offering service that is inexpensive and easy to use, with no strings attached. In the past, a shopper trying to decide between a pager …

LAS VEGAS-Telemetry applications made a strong showing at last week’s Wireless Apps ’96 show hosted by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. Skywire Corp. announced a trial to monitor several hundred soda vending machines throughout Southern Nevada for J.W. Costello Beverage …

WASHINGTON-Nextel Communications Inc.’s proposed $159 million buyout of Pittencrieff Communications Inc.-a deal that could give one firm half of the 2.2 million dispatch customers and access to most of the U.S. population-could become a key antitrust test case in the …

LAS VEGAS-After making a splash last July in the wireless Internet/intranet-access market with a micro-browser software solution optimized for so-called “thin-client” wireless devices, Unwired Planet Inc. is moving on up to “fatter” devices that contain more memory and processing power. …

Editor’s Note: The RCR editorial staff has compiled this list of terrestrial-based, two-way mobile data operators based on interviews with industry contacts. The chart is arranged alphabetically since many of the companies are just starting to offer services. Although most …

AT&T Wireless Services Inc. launched Interim Standard 136 cellular digital service in 40 major markets last week using the label PCS, deliberately trying to confuse the technology distinctions between cellular service at 900 MHz and personal communications services at 2 …

Regional Bell operating company U S West Communications Group said it hopes to bundle wireless services along with its local exchange service by 1997. The company is bidding for several licenses in the Federal Communications Commission’s D-, E- and F-block …

NEW YORK-With plans to deliberately blur the distinction between cellular and personal communications services, AT&T Corp. launched an advanced digital cellular communications network covering a population of 70 million in 40 major markets where it now offers cellular service. The …

Luis M. Larralde is the new international area manager for Hutton Communications Inc. His responsibilities will include establishing new accounts and generating business in the South Florida market as well as in Central and South American and in the Caribbean. …

NEW YORK-Boston Communications Group Inc. has a not-so-modest proposal and concrete plans to execute it: a prepaid wireless roaming network for the Western Hemisphere. Already the company is in various stages of a rollout of its C2C wireless prepaid roaming …

NEW YORK-LCC International Inc., an independent provider of radio frequency network design for wireless telecommunications, went public Sept. 25 with a 5.25 million share offering of Class A common stock at $16 each. The new issue was increased from the …

WASHINGTON-While carriers, manufacturers and the FBI continue to argue about digital wiretap implementation, the wireless telecom industry is quietly lobbying Congress to keep personal communications services and digital cellular licensees from having to pay for equipment changes. Under the 1994 …