In Other News ...

* Horizon Personal Communications has tripled the size of its service area through its management agreement with Sprint PCS. Horizon, an affiliate of The Chillicothe Telephone Company, now will serve 4.9 million people in Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.

* Ericsson intends to pay about $22 million cash for all rights to the network-planning-software and field-measurement-product divisions at LLC International. The two companies also entered into a 3-year product-supply agreement for certain field-measurement and network-optimization products, as well as a license agreement where Ericsson will license network-planning software to LCC.

* Virginia Tech University has been awarded a $1 million research grant from the National Science Foundation. The school's Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science departments intend to use the 3-year grant to help speed deployment of wireless phone, Internet and video technology globally.

* Powertel now offers international roaming to its customers for $2 per month, plus per-minute calling charges, which vary among international carriers. Apart from sending and receiving calls, international roaming will allow customers to use voice mail, e-mail, Internet surfing, reciprocal faxing, 2-way messaging and most other wireless features available in North America.

REQUIRED 1. Content of subject-initiated conference calls: A law-enforcement agency (LEA) can access the content of conference calls the subject under surveillance initiates (including the call content of parties on hold).

2. Party hold, join, drop on conference calls: Carrier will send the LEA messages that identify active parties of a call. Specifically, on a conference call, these messages indicate whether a party is holding, has joined or has been dropped.

3. Subject-initiated dialing and signaling information: Access to subject's dialing and signaling information will inform a LEA of a subject's use of features.

4. In-band and out-of-band signaling: Carrier will send the LEA a message whenever a subject's service sends a tone or other network message to the subject or associate.

5. Timing information: Carrier will send the LEA information permitting it to correlate call identifying information with the call content of a communications interception.

6. Dialed digit extraction: The originating carrier will provide any digits dialed by the subject after connecting to another carrier's service.

NOT REQUIRED 1. Surveillance status: Carrier would send the LEA a message to verify it has established a wiretap, which is functioning correctly.

2. Continuity check tone: Electronic signal would alert the LEA if the facility used for delivery of call-content interception failed or lost continuity.

3. Feature status: Carrier would notify the LEA when, for the facilities under surveillance, subject adds or deletes specific subscription-based calling services.

This month marks the eighth annual Telecom '99 conference and exhibition in Geneva. With more than 1,000 exhibitors from 48 countries and more than 200,000 attendees expected, it is the show of the year.

In addition to the full-week exhibition, the International Telecommunications Union has put together the Forum, a conference packed with some of the world's most influential and powerful telecom executives, including Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman & CEO; C. Michael Armstrong, AT&T chairman & CEO; and Lawrence Ellison, Oracle chairman & CEO. Designed to highlight new technologies and examine industry strategies, the Forum comprises four summits and eight combined sessions.

Wireless Review has put together a conference guide to help you plan your week. Check out www.wirelessreview.com for a quick look at some of the key sessions you shouldn't miss.

Teen Research Unlimited's annual survey indicates the percentages of persons in the 12-to-19-age group who think these items are "in."

* Cellular Phones -- 80.7%

* Backpacks -- 78.3%

* Pagers/Beepers -- 75.4%

* Phone Cards -- 65.5%

* Candles -- 58.8%

* Tattoos -- 54.0%

* Volkswagon Beetle -- 48.0%