Wednesday November 29, 7:32 pm Eastern Time
AT&T, Cingular seen adding GSM standard to networks
NEW YORK, Nov 29 (Reuters) - U.S. wireless telephone companies AT&T Wireless Group Inc. and Cingular Wireless plan to add ``GSM'' technology, the world's dominant wireless telephone standard, to their existing networks, industry sources said on Wednesday.
AT&T Wireless (NYSE:AWE - news) is expected to unveil its GSM plans on Thursday when it announces its long-awaited agreement to sell a $9 billion stake to Japanese wireless telephone company NTT DoCoMo Inc. , analysts said.
AT&T Wireless and DoCoMo have declined to comment.
GSM, or Global System for Mobile Communications, is the wireless standard most commonly used by international telephone companies. AT&T uses a mix of wireless standards, while Cingular uses mostly TDMA, or Time Division Multiple Access.
Cingular, a joint venture of BellSouth Corp. (NYSE:BLS - news) and SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC - news), declined to comment on its technology plans. AT&T Wireless also declined to comment.
Adding, or ``overlaying,'' GSM to their current wireless technology would allow customers of AT&T Wireless and Cingular to use one wireless handset when traveling in the U.S. or overseas.
The addition of GSM also would allow the two companies to more easily shift toward next-generation wireless technology that can transmit data and video at high speeds. The cost and timeframe of the GSM addition were not immediately available.
Wireless carriers will go through several technology transitions as they move toward third-generation or ``3-G'' services. Not all wireless standards will mesh as well as others during this evolution.
One stage in the technology transition is called EDGE (Enhanced Data GSM Environment), which is based on GSM standards. GSM carriers do not have to make any changes to their network structure or invest in new licenses as they move to EDGE.
However, carriers such as Cingular will have more difficulty. With TDMA, voice calls cannot be carried in the spectrum allocated to the EDGE channel. TDMA can transmit only data information in EDGE.
Adding a GSM overlay would allow Cingular to transmit both voice and data information in the EDGE environment, sources familiar with the situation said.
Cingular also has been working with manufacturers to develop a telephone handset that works on GSM, TDMA and CDMA (code division multiple access) standards, sources said. |
