BellSouth Corp is joining forces with Ram Broadcasting Corp, New York to form a 50-50 joint venture to establish a one-way radio data transmission service to compete with the Motorola Inc-IBM Corp Ardis – but will support a variety of terminals where Ardis requires Motorola ones. L M Ericsson Telefon AB will supply its Mobitex radio switches for the network, which will be operated by Data Transmission Services Inc, owned by RAM, Ericsson and Nordbanken AB of Sweden outside the BellSouth area. As part of the deal, BellSouth, investing $300m altogether, will pay RAM $35m for 26% more of Honolulu Cellular Telephone Co, taking its stake up to 51%.
