THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 3, 1995 TAG: 9511030494
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Two new mobile phone providers said this week that they'll be ready to compete with Hampton Roads' cellular carriers by early 1997.
AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and PCS PrimeCo. L.P. will be the newest entrants in the expanding competition for wireless phone services. Last March they paid the Federal Communications Commission $33.7 million and $33 million, respectively, for licenses to service most of Virginia and the northeastern corner of North Carolina.
The purchases were part of a $7.7 billion national auction of a portion of the radio spectrum designated Personal Communications Services.
Just about every major telecommunications company participated in the air waves ``land rush.'' They'll spend billions of dollars more building new networks that will offer phone users more mobile options in the years ahead.
And there are more wireless phone competitors to come. The FCC plans to auction four additional licenses in every U.S. market over the next year.
In Hampton Roads, AT&T and PCS PrimeCo will be competing against two well-established cellular carriers, Sprint Cellular Co. and GTE Corp.'s GTE Mobilenet unit.
But their representatives said they believe they'll prosper. One key is to get a jump on the next wave of PCS entrants.
``We're going to be very aggressive about building the system,'' said Paul Pachuta, a site acquisition manager for AT&T Wireless Services. Pachuta oversees the leasing of antenna sites for AT&T in its license territory that includes Hampton Roads, Richmond, Roanoke and North Carolina's Outer Banks.
He said AT&T has leased or signed lease options on nearly half of the roughly 200 antenna sites it will need in that territory for a planned launch of PCS services by early 1997. The territorial headquarters has been selected: an office in the Norfolk Commerce Park.
PCS PrimeCo has been similarly active, said Paula Angel-Jones, a spokeswoman for that organization, which is a consortium of four regional Bell phone companies, including Bell Atlantic Corp.
Angel-Jones said antenna leases have so far been the main focus of her group, which has its territorial office in Chesterfield County outside Richmond. PCS PrimeCo plans to begin offering services locally by the end of 1996 under a new trade name that has yet to be selected.
Like several other providers, both AT&T and PCS PrimeCo plan to weave their PCS systems with their existing cellular systems into nationwide wireless phone networks.
Their Hampton Roads customers will likely be issued dual-mode phones that can be switched between PCS and cellular frequencies depending upon where they travel, Pachuta and Angel-Jones said. PCS will operate in the 1.9-gigahertz range. Cellular operates at about 850 megahertz.
The PCS representatives said their phones will be similar to cell phones, as will actual services.
Analysts have predicted that the addition of competitors will likely drive down prices for wireless phone services, accelerating the already-rapid growth in the number of people using the services.
Since cellular phones were introduced in the early 1980s, the number of U.S. users has grown to about 35 million. Cellular subscribership has increased by 10 million in the past year, according to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. by CNB