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FOCUS - AT&T to sidestep Bells with wireless
By Nick Louth
NEW YORK, Feb 25 (Reuter) - AT&T Corp looking for additional ways of reaching local telephone customers without relying
on the regional Bells, said on Tuesday it had developed a fast wireless technology to provide that link.
The system, which is to be tested on 30,000 consumers in Chicago this year, has the capacity to provide two phone lines and a
fast Internet connection without laying any new cables.
The Wall Street Journal reported AT&T's plans Monday.
If AT&T's plans come to fruition, it will have found a new channel for reaching millions of consumers, particularly those in
suburban and rural areas where conventional competition may be loath to build new cables to rival the Bells, analysts say.
For the regional Bells, the nightmare would be that their network is entirely dispensable.
Much of the wireless network needed to run the system is already available via AT&T's Personal Communications Services
(PCS) and digital cellular services.
"We believe it is the channel that will finally bring the communications revolution into people's homes," AT&T Chief Operating
Officer John Walter told a news conference.
Each customer would require a 13-inch-square box on the side of the house that connects by radio via a neighborhood base
station to an AT&T wireless switching center. Each base station would support 2,000 households.
Kauser said building a wireless network in a given area would only come after the first orders are received, making the
cash-flow business model less financially demanding for AT&T.
AT&T is keeping its commitment vague ahead of the results of the tests in Chicago, but if the service meets all technical and
financial criteria, then thousands of base stations could be built across the country in a few years.
AT&T calculates spending of roughly $1,200 per home within the system's reach. It declined to say exactly how much it would
spend in all but concedes it could run into the billions if a very large build-out is approved.
"We are prepared to invest whatever is required to provide a service that is unique and attractive ...," Walter said.
Similar technologies are being developed by MCI Communications Corp. and Sprint Corp. GTE Corp. has had a service called
Tele-Go since 1994, which has 150,000 customers.
AT&T says its service is much faster and makes more efficient use of radio spectrum.
"I'm not sure people are grasping how new this is," said Nick Kauser, AT&T Wireless chief technology officer and the lead
developer on the project.
Kauser said the cost of building the system would make it a marginal proposition for local calling alone. But by giving AT&T a
clear way of providing a whole bundle of services, it will give a great marketplace advantage.
The technology includes encryption -- coding and decoding -- to protect privacy and eliminate fraud, and allows Internet access
at 128 kilobits per second, compared to 28.8 kilobits in most personal computer modems.
No firm time frames were given for when consumers will be able to get the equipment or what they would be charged to use it. |
