Wireless Services

WASHINGTON-Iridium Inc. announced it has concluded a private financing within its existing investor group, raising an additional $315 million and boosting its total capital base from $1.6 billion to more than $1.9 billion. The additional funds will be applied by …

Some big-city markets saw a decrease in cloning fraud last year after implementing personal identification numbers, but the effort hasn’t beat the bandits. Cloning criminals have hit the road, scanning for numbers in one market, reprogramming and selling handsets in …

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill.-The Wireless Data Division of AT&T Wireless Services and Ameritech Cellular Services have signed an intercarrier agreement that allows each carrier’s Cellular Digital Packet Data customers to use CDPD within the other’s cellular network. The carriers’ customers will …

PITTSBURGH-AT&T Wireless Services announced its customers in western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia and eastern Ohio now have access to the AT&T CellCard, a smart card that extends the reach of a customer’s cellular phone outside North America. To use the …

While Rogers Cantel Mobile Communications Inc. showed dramatic fourth quarter and year-end income loss for 1995, the company said it was the strongest quarter ever for adding cellular customers. The majority of net loss is attributed to acquisition costs associated …

WASHINGTON-The panels and format for the Federal Communications Commission’s March 5 en banc hearing on spectrum policy have been set, with the agenda and most of the questioning determined by the four commissioners and Chairman Reed Hundt. Concurrent with the …

SAN FRANCISCO-AirTouch Communications Inc. announced its net income for the fourth quarter, ended Dec. 31, more than tripled to $11 million, increasing 261 percent when compared with the $3 million reported Dec. 31, 1994. The company’s net income for the …

In a Feb. 9 letter to Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.), Personal Communications Industry Association President Jay Kitchen volunteered his group’s help as Congress begins to formulate its broadcast analog spectrum-auctioning policy next month, exhorting that “the days of …

RICHARDSON, Texas-Ericsson Inc. announced it will market turnkey systems based on the new personal air communications technology standard for the narrowband personal communications services market. The company said it signed a multimillion dollar contract to implement the technology for AT&T …

Editor’s note: Following are five charts ranking major players in the wireless telecommunications industry according to revenues, net incomes, percent change in revenue from 1994 to 1995, percent change in net income from 1994 to 1995 and two-year total return …

Despite strong initial efforts on the part of Chilean, Argentine and Mexican regulators, implementing personal communications services in Latin America will fall a little short of earlier bullish expectations. At the same time, PCS already has taken off in a …

Sprint Telecommunications Venture has awarded contracts to build its personal communications services network to AT&T Network Systems Inc. and Northern Telecom Inc. with roughly a 60/40 split of STV’s markets. The contracts are valued at more than $3 billion. “Today’s …

The Cellular One Group intends to expand the scope of the Cellular One brand name to paging, local and long-distance service, and will offer licensing to B-side cellular carriers, personal communications services operators and resellers as well. “Customers want to …

A galaxy of new wireless services may soon beam down on the telephony-poor regions of the world. Mobile satellite systems-just like terrestrial-based wireless networks-are evolving from serving specialized markets to providing consumer pocket telephony as well as plain old telephone …

DUBLIN, Ireland-Three American companies are working through the U.S. Embassy in Ireland to determine how an Irish long-distance company won the country’s second cellular wireless telephone license last fall. Motorola Inc., AT&T Wireless Services and Southwestern Bell Corp. want the …

NEW YORK-Provided technological breakthroughs occur to improve transmission quality and quantity, wireless communications could become a substitute for fixed wireline communications within a decade. That assessment was offered Jan. 25 by Michael Minter, managing director of Smith Barney Inc. of …

ORANGEBURG, N.Y.-Former Nynex Mobile Communications cellular executive Alfred Boschulte has been named managing director of Excelcomindo, Nynex’s joint venture in Indonesia that was formed to provide digital cellular phone service to that region. Boschulte is the former president of Tomcom …

NEW YORK – With fixed costs dropping in tandem with an expanding customer base, cellular phone service for the average individual consumer is on an upward trajectory in competitive urban markets in the East, representative for major carriers report. “It …

Microcell Telecommunications Inc. is expected to be first to offer commercial personal communications services in Canada, launching in at least two cities by September, predicts the Yankee Group, a Boston-based research and consulting group. Four companies recently won PCS licenses …

The cellular industry has taken numerous steps to package cellular for the mass consumer retail market, but a small gap remains between the industry’s effort and the complicated process to activate a phone. “Mass merchants are a substantial opportunity for …

AT&T Wireless Services announced three executive positions for its North Texas/Louisiana district. Todd Felker is now director of marketing and is responsible for advertising, distribution strategy, market research and analysis, product introductions, public relations, revenue forecasting and sales planning and …

WASHINGTON-With the idea of wireless communications as a complement to traditional wireline residential and business service still fresh in the public’s mind, the move toward wireless as a purveyor of local-loop service is closer than most people think. With some …

OKLAHOMA CITY-A hearing is scheduled Tuesday in the civil lawsuit filed by AT&T Wireless Services against an Oklahoma City medical supply company that provides cellular phone emulation service. AT&T received an emergency restraining order against Safari Communications on Jan. 8, …

Just months after AT&T Corp. stated it would split into three separate companies, Chairman Robert Allen announced 40,000 people will be displaced or laid off during the next three years. Meanwhile, AT&T Wireless Services is actively recruiting. Experts say downsizing …

A cellular phone containing a scanner, into which new numbers can be programmed using the phone keypad, was just one of the sophisticated cloning devices acquired by the U.S. Secret Service in a recent New York City arrest. “This looks …