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Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen B. Temple who wrote (1644)	10/28/1998 8:10:00 AM
From: Stephen B. Temple	Respond to of 3178

OT>> Cheaper Cell Phone Service on Way October 28, 1998 SPRINGFIELD, VA. - The Associated Press via NewsEdge Corporation : Teligent Inc., a start-up telephone company run by a former AT&T Corp. president, began doing business Tuesday in 10 major U.S. markets. Chef Executive Officer Alex Mandl, who left AT&T in 1996, said the company offers desktop phone service using microwave technology that bypasses local wire-based networks. ''It is the culmination of a lot of work,'' Mandl said in a telephone interview. The small and mid-sized businesses that Teligent is targeting will be billed at a flat monthly fee about 30 percent less than they had been paying regional Bell systems, he said. The company is not offering service to residential customers. The wireless network can also handle much more data, allowing customers to run the Internet about 100 times faster, he said. The system uses 12-inch antenna discs on top of buildings that beam microwave signals to base stations within a 30-mile radius. From the base stations, signals are bounced back to a local receiver or relayed along fiber optic lines, he said. Chief Operating Officer Kirby ''Buddy'' Pickle called it a hybrid network that takes advantage of fiber optic lines while avoiding the slower copper wires that comprise the bulk of local lines. Teligent, based in the Washington suburb of Vienna, will limit itself to customers it can serve with its own equipment, rather than reselling service on Bell system lines. ''It's a much lower cost structure and allows us to keep control,'' Mandl said. ''We're not bound by the complexities and limitations of the Bell network.'' Teligent began sales Tuesday for networks set up in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, Denver, Tampa and Washington, D.C. It will expand to five more markets by the end of the year and at least 20 next year, Mandl said. The company owns licenses issued by the Federal Communications Commission that allow it to operate in 74 markets, potentially reaching about half of the 54 million business lines in the United States. More licenses will be purchased as they become available. [Copyright 1998, Associated Press