Continuing its European expansion strategy, Sierra Wireless Inc has appointed Derek Evans as VP distribution for Europe. He will be responsible for leading the company’s market entry initiatives including distribution, sales, business development and technical support. Evans has more than 20 years of GM sales and marketing experience with blue chip companies in the wireless, telecommunications and consumer electronics industries. Prior to joining Sierra Wireless, he held similar positions in Europe as GM/sales director at Dolphin Telecom, general sales manager at Hitachi UK Ltd and GM Call Connections Ltd.

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Telus and Samsung issue digital phone
Telus Mobility and Samsung Telecommunications America have joined forces to produce a digital phone. The Samsung Uproar is a dual-band, dual-mode PCS phone that features an integrated MP3 player. It allows users to download MP3 files from their computers to their handsets.

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Cell-Loc Inc is continuing to develop and test digital versions of its Cellocate wireless location technology while it rides out the telecommunications market storm. The company is in alpha trials of its CDMA version with Telus Mobility and hopes are that both it and the GSM-based Cellocate system will move into beta tests this summer.

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Wireless carriers spent more on capital expenditures last year, but they also generated more revenue and signed up a greater number of digital than analog customers, according to new figures compiled by Statistics Canada. Released earlier this month, the Quarterly Telecommunications Statistics also found that wireless telecom is outpacing wireline when it comes to expanding access to the public switched telephone network.

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Planning is underway to revive the Radio Advisory Board of Canada’s Spectrum 20/20 conference after dwindling attendance and increasing competition prompted officials to call it quits after last November’s show. RABC executive director Ted Campbell says the symposium will be scaled back from two days to one, with fewer amenities.

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Aliant Telecom Wireless hopes to conquer one of the last frontiers of analog cellular with an aggressive campaign designed to increase digital subscriber levels in Atlantic Canada from 17-34 per cent this year, and to as high as 40 per cent of the population by 2003. Earlier this month, the mobility division unveiled plans to spend $70 million to expand and improve PCS coverage throughout the Maritimes – a move the company’s president says will ensure the network can meet consumer demand for PCS and the new features that come with a digital service.

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Canada’s two mobile satellite service (MSS) providers are opposing a bid by the U.S. cellular companies to have MSS spectrum reallocated for the land-mobile industry. The Washington-based Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) is lobbying the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to have some bands in the 2 GHz range – spectrum that was assigned to MSS on a worldwide basis in 1992 – turned over to terrestrial carriers for 3G.

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Chip designer SpaceBridge Semiconductor is counting on two recent hires and a well-connected advisory committee to help the company attract the attention of broadband wireless equipment manufacturers. The arrival of Bernard Bleuer as assistant VP product line management and Simon Morris as director broadband wireless semiconductor solutions also marks the Hull QC-based company’s emergence from a three-year-old R&D start-up to the commercial phase of its evolution.

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