THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 28, 1996 TAG: 9603280345
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Bell Atlantic Corp. has begun hiring managers for its planned 100-channel ``wireless cable TV'' system in Hampton Roads and has chosen a site in Chesapeake's Greenbrier section for the system's headquarters.
The regional phone company said last year that it would offer the service locally after it purchased a large stake in a wireless cable operator called CAI Wireless Systems Inc. that serves the region.
CAI, through its Hampton Roads Choice unit, now offers about two dozen channels to an undisclosed number of local subscribers for prices ranging from $19 to $29 a month.
Bell Atlantic plans to more than quadruple the number of channels offered when it takes over the marketing late this year. It will use so-called ``digital compression'' technologies that will allow it to squeeze more signals into the microwave spectrum allocated for the service.
Larry Plumb, a spokesman for Reston-based Bell Atlantic Video, said Wednesday that the company's previously announced plan to introduce the service in the fourth quarter still stands. He added that Hampton Roads will be the first region in Bell Atlantic's mid-Atlantic territory to be offered the expanded-channel wireless service. It will be marketed in conjunction with a New York-based media and technology consortium called Tele-TV, in which Bell Atlantic has a major interest.
Plumb said it is too early to discuss planned prices for the service. But he disclosed that among the offerings will be pay-per-view movies whose starts will be staggered so frequently that Bell Atlantic will bill the service as ``near video-on-demand.''
Eventually, Plumb said, Bell Atlantic will offer throughout its region an even more elaborate service. Its phone wires will carry true videos on demand as well as a number of other interactive features such as home shopping.
The company is already offering customers in a market trial in Northern Virginia a choice of 725 on-demand videos via its phone network. It plans to build on that without a full-scale rollout of ``wired'' version of its video offerings in the Philadelphia area in mid-1997.
But because the technologies required for a territory-wide commercial rollout of such services have taken longer to develop than expected - and because customer demand is unproven - Plumb said the company decided to also offer a cheaper ``interim'' video solution.
That's where wireless cable comes in.
CAI's Hampton Roads Choice has been offering its service in Hampton Roads since August 1994. The Albany, N.Y.-based company hasn't disclosed how many subscribers it has locally. But it is only a small fraction of the customers now signed up for traditional cable service from operators like Cox Communications Inc., the largest provider in the region with about 260,000 subscribers.
A spokesman for Cox said that company, which provides about 75 local cable channels, is prepared for toughening competition. Cox is making plans of its own to offer local-exchange phone service in Hampton Roads - in competition mainly with Bell Atlantic.
So far, wireless cable, which is transmitted to small antennas attached to homes, has been slow to take customers away from traditional cable operators like Cox partly because of transmission limitations. Large buildings or even thick stands of trees can disrupt the microwave signals.
But wireless services have also suffered because there typically are no more than 30 microwave frequencies available in a market for the service. The ``digital compression'' technologies that Bell Atlantic plans to utilize will allow it to squeeze several more separate channels onto each frequency.
Plumb said Bell Atlantic has hired a general manager for the Hampton Roads operation, whom he declined to name. In addition, the company has run newspaper ads for a technical operations director and a financial operations director for the local system. Plumb declined to say how many people Bell Atlantic plans to employ in the operation.
He referred questions about CAI's local employees and customers to that company, whose local manager was unavailable for comment Wednesday. by CNB