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Technology Stocks : The New Qualcomm - a S&P500 company -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scott Zion who wrote (6964)	3/1/2000 5:00:00 PM
From: Scott Zion	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

BAM gears up data services NANCY GOHRING Bell Atlantic Mobile has its work cut out for it. In addition to ambitious data plans, the operator is deep in the midst of digesting all of its recent mergers. The operator has plans to aggressively roll out 1X in mid to late 2001, with trials with one vendor slated for mid year and another to follow. Despite Lucent?s pledge to begin making HDR equipment, BAM will wait and see how that protocol develops, said Dick Lynch, chief technology officer for BAM. He expects that a number of CDMA data solutions like HDR from vendors other than Qualcomm will converge into a de facto standard. Lynch believes BAM has an advantage as it moves toward rolling out wireless data on its CDMA network because of the experience it has with CDPD. BAM can use the same IP backbone that the CDPD network feeds off of for its CDMA data capabilities. The two networks can also share the same WAP server that the CDPD network uses. BAM also has experience with billing and customer service on a packet network. The customer bases for data services will be different on the networks though. "CDPD is built like a tank," Lynch said. Customers that stay in the same local area, need high security and redundancy are ideal users of the CDPD network. BAM is focused now on building services that use CDMA data capabilities and fit the horizontal markets. Here at the show, BAM announced a relationship with Amazon.com that will allow customers to make e-commerce transactions from their handsets. "We recognize that the horizontal market is ready to go," Lynch said. At the same time, that BAM is developing these data initiatives, BAM is digesting a joint venture with Vodafone AirTouch, which recently announced plans for a worldwide portal. The companies are continuing to follow their own paths, Lynch said, despite official BAM word at the time of the Vodafone AirTouch portal announcement that BAM would follow that effort. BAM?s path will be the same as the global Vodafone AirTouch plan as long as their philosophies match, Lynch said. It is likely, though, that equipment decisions will be different. internettelephony.com