Canada

Three former Nortel execs charged with fraud

Lynnette Luna — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:58:28 -0400

Three former executives from Nortel Networks were criminally charged in Canada with misstating the company's financial results in 2002 and 2003, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Frank Dunn, former chief executive, along with former CFO Douglas Beatty and ex-controller Michael Gollogly were each charged seven different fraud-related counts. Article (WSJ sub. req.)

RIM inks distro deal with Brightpoint

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:59:55 -0400

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has inked a distribution deal with Brightpoint that aims to extend BlackBerry's popularity outside of the North American market. Only one-third of RIM's customers are outside the U.S. and Canada and Apple is quickly making strides to court enterprise users all over the world with its iPhone handset. The deal is a big win for Brightpoint, which already has deals with HTC, Nokia and others. Brightpoint expects to handle 100 million devices this year, or about 8 percent of total devices shipped.

For more on the deal:
- read this report from the WSJ (sub. req.)

Rogers to roll out iPhone this year

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:59:58 -0400

After more than a year of waiting, Rogers Wireless is finally gearing up to rollout Apple's iPhones. The carrier said it would offer the handset to its subscribers some time this year. Rogers is the only GSM provider in Canada, so the partnership was more or less a shoe-in and comes as little surprise. Rogers' COO Nadir Mohamed hinted at the partnership in early 2007 shortly after Apple unveiled the handset: "I'm not saying whether we have agreements or anything [with Apple], but given the iPhone was launched on GSM, we're in good position to reinforce that we're the first and have the best-feature devices."

For more on Rogers' iPhone:
- read this article from the WSJ (sub. req.)

FEATURE: Andrew Seybold-- A Worldwide Swath of Spectrum?

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:59:53 -0500

A Worldwide Swath of Spectrum?

By Andrew Seybold

The ITU and its World Radio Administrative Congress (WARC) is the body that has divided up spectrum for use in various parts of the world. Within each of the major geographies, the spectrum is sometimes used for different types of wireless.

For example, our 850-MHz cellular band is used in China, Latin America, Canada and other places, but not in Europe where they chose to use the 900-MHz portion of the spectrum for their first GSM networks. In places such as Israel, a portion of the 900-MHz band is used for the military.

Click here to continue reading...

Freedom goes MVNO

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:59:55 -0400

A familiar name popped up on the radar screen this morning-Freedom Wireless. According to the poorly written press release, Freedom Wireless, a subsidiary of TMT Capital Corp., has acquired an MVNO "license" to sell cellular voice, data and messaging services in the U.S. and Canada.

The company says it's going to sell GSM service across the largest GSM cellular network in the U.S. (read: AT&T) and via the Rogers network in Canada. The main target for its service, according to the release, is the prepaid cellular, affiliate and non-profit markets. Freedom's services will start at $10 per month and it will offer free cellular-to-cellular calling on the Freedom Wireless network.

Freedom Wireless was also the name of the firm that was involved a long-standing patent battle with prepaid billing provider bcgi. Freedom's founders won the patent in 1994 for technology that can automatically shut down mobile phones that have exceeded usage limits. In July 2006, after years of battling Freedom, bcgi finally settled the dispute by agreeing to pay $55.3 million to the firm.

- see this press release on TMT Capital's plan.
- and this release on Freedom's MVNO plan.

Related Article:
Freedom sues 2 U.S. carriers over 'prepaid' patent Report