VoiceStream Wireless to Join Local Cell Market
Worldwide Cell Phone Sales Down in 2001
High Tech
by Brad Graves, Staff Writer
By summer, one more company will be vying for your wireless telecommunications dollar.
Bellevue, Wash.-based VoiceStream Wireless Corp. plans to provide cell phone and wireless data service here under its new brand, T-Mobile. T-Mobile retail stores ought to be popping up soon.
The company is jumping into California and Nevada with both feet, offering General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) data service for use on devices like RIM Blackberry handsets.
Faster than current generation networks but not quite as fast as third-generation or “3G,” the GPRS service falls under a category the telecom community calls 2.5G.
That’s in addition to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) networks T-Mobile uses for voice communication.
In other areas of the country, T-Mobile offers a complementary service: short-range wireless connections that are even speedier than GPRS. These are available at “hot spots” like airports and Starbucks coffeehouses, using a technology called Wi-Fi. It was unclear whether or how soon T-Mobile would offer these in San Diego.
VoiceStream is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. One benefit the carrier boasts is trans-Atlantic roaming.
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Cell Phone Glut?: Worldwide sales of mobile phones actually declined in 2001, according to the research firm Gartner Dataquest of Stamford, Conn.
Manufacturers shipped 412.7 million units in 2000, the company reported, but 399.6 units in 2001.
Worldwide mobile phone sales had been on an upswing between 1996 and 2000, at a compound annual growth rate close to 60 percent, the company reported.
The report noted that in 2001:
– Nokia shipments grew by 10.5 percent over the previous year, to 140 million units.
– Motorola shipments dropped by 1.7 percent to 59 million units.
– Siemens shipments grew by 10.2 percent to 30 million units.
– Samsung shipments grew by 36.8 percent to 28 million units.
– Ericsson shipments dropped by 35 percent to 27 million units.
All figures are worldwide. Other manufacturers shipped 116 million units during 2001, Gartner reported.
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Going The 802.11a Way: Add Sanyo Semiconductor Corp. to the companies making investments in San Diego-based Magis Networks. Magis is developing chips for an all-in-one gateway device that would feed data to televisions and computers throughout an entire house or office building. That data would go out wirelessly, using a high-speed, short-range technology called 802.11a. Motorola and Hitachi have also invested in Magis, which has so far declined to say how much each company is investing.
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Data Aloft: San Diego-based Quake Global, Inc. reports that EchoFlight, Inc. of Boulder, Colo. is working to incorporate Quake Global satellite modems into an in-flight data system for the private, small plane market. Called Flight Cheetah, the EchoFlight system is meant to deliver weather and terrain information to pilots through the Orbcomm satellite constellation.
Send high-tech news to Graves via e-mail at
bgraves@sdbj.com.
Or send it by fax to (858) 571-3628.
