Chantilly, Virginia-based GTE Corp has won a contract to provide a wireless data system and communications services on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. GTE would not say how much the deal was worth but said it was a significant portion of the Exchange’s $125m program to invest in technology, the largest in its 203-year history. The new system will provide about 1,200 brokers and stock exchange staff members with customized hand-held computers – from Symbol Technologies Inc – and radios for use directly on the trading floor, to replace pagers or phones and bits of paper to notify floor brokers of buy or sell orders. System development and testing will continue for the rest of 1996 and a production pilot system will be installed later this year. The first broker is to be brought on-line by the end of the year. Full production roll-out is set for the second half of 1997.
