Cingular, AT & T; Launch Wireless Internet
Wireless: Announcements Accompany Merger Reports
BY BRAD GRAVES
Staff Writer
AT & T; Wireless and Cingular Wireless both introduced high-speed Internet service to San Diego County cell phone customers last week.
The announcements appeared the same week Bloomberg News reported the two carriers were in early merger discussions. The companies have not commented on those reports.
AT & T; Wireless and Cingular Wireless both introduced General Packet Radio Service, or GPRS, an always-on data service.
Cingular noted it is the next step toward offering third generation, or 3G services. Since it is not quite third generation, the service has been dubbed “2.5G.”
GPRS “gives consumers the flexibility to toggle between an Internet session , say wireless access to e-mail , and a phone call or text message without having to abandon their connection,” said Cingular CEO Stephen Carter in a prepared statement.
For Internet use, Cingular said it would charge by the kilobyte , by the volume of data sent and received , and not by how much time customers spend on the Internet. Both AT & T; Wireless and Cingular were advertising plans mixing monthly service charges and per-kilobyte data charges.
Equipment choices vary.
AT & T; Wireless was advertising a modem that would connect a laptop computer or wallet-size computer with the Internet wirelessly. It was also advertising a complement of handsets.
Cingular was talking up the Internet capabilities of its phone handsets.
On a laptop, the speed of the service can approach that of a dial-up Internet connection, AT & T; said. Handsets operate more slowly.
The advanced data technology called GPRS is an outgrowth of GSM, or Global System for Mobile Communications.
GSM/GPRS technology is at odds with a homegrown technology, Code Division Multiple Access, or CDMA. Qualcomm Inc. licenses CDMA.
Verizon Wireless has promised to introduce the 2.5G version of CDMA to San Diego County consumers next month.
AT & T;’s local publicist took the opportunity to take a swipe at the competitor, noting that advanced CDMA had been promised but not yet delivered to the home of CDMA.
Verizon chose to introduce the service to the East Coast and the San Francisco Bay Area first.
AT & T; Wireless is based in Redmond, Wash.
Cingular, a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth, is based in Atlanta.
