AT&T Wireless launches higher speed data network
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AT&T Wireless beat all the other U.S. wireless carriers to the starting line yesterday when it launched its higher speed data network in the Seattle area. The company expects to expand the service to 40 percent of its coverage area by the end of the year and to all its markets by the end of next year.
"You're seeing a true multimedia network being built out," said Mike Broom, spokesman for AT&T Wireless. "We're just excited to roll out our first step in our hometown of Seattle."
The initial network runs along the Interstate 5 corridor from Toledo in Lewis County to Blaine in Whatcom County, and it branches east along I-90 to Spokane and along I-82 to Kennewick.
As the popularity of cell phones has grown, wireless-industry revenue per subscriber has steadily declined. Most wireless carriers are banking future revenues on the transmission of data. At its current snail's pace of 19 kilobits per second, though, wireless data transmission in the U.S. so far has been ignored by most users.
At peak performance, the new service offers data speeds of up to 107 kilobits per second; most expect the service to average 56 Kbps, about the same speeds reached by conventional modems on a personal computer. The new network moves data using a technology called General Packet Radio Service (GPRS); voice traffic is carried over a Global System for Mobile telecommunications (GSM) network — the mobile standard in Europe.
Phones and devices using the GPRS network are always connected. The network itself runs separately from the network that carries voice calls. Current wireless data services usually require placing a call to send or receive data over a voice channel. With the new service, a customer could answer a voice call while surfing the wireless Web or get a new e-mail while talking on the phone.
Subscribers will be charged based on the amount of data they use, starting at $50 per month for 400 voice minutes and 1 megabyte of data; additional data will be billed at 0.75 cents per kilobyte. Reading a 500-word news story, for instance, eats up about 25 kilobytes, or about 19 cents.
Motorola is providing a $199 handset called Timeport from which customers can access their corporate intranet, e-mail and calendar information. The phone can also be connected to a PC to use as a modem. AT&T Wireless plans eventually to offer service over wireless modems.
Since October, the company has been building the new network. Its old digital voice network runs on an incompatible technology called Time Division Multiple Access. The company had to build a GSM network in order to build a foundation for high-speed data.
The new service is commonly called 2.5G because it's a stepping stone on the evolutionary path to 3G, or third-generation, services that can provide speeds up to 2 megabits per second. After GPRS, the company plans to offer a 384 Kbps service on a technology called Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution at the beginning of next year. In 2003, AT&T Wireless is hoping to launch the megabit-speed service on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System.
Sharon Pian Chan can be reached at 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com.