American Portable Telecom Inc. has selected PCS-1900-the 1900 MHz version of the Global System for Mobile communications digital technology standard-for its personal communications services network.
The company’s choice of GSM boosts that technology standard to potential coverage of half of the nation’s population, APT said, adding that GSM technology now is expected to gain a national footprint in upcoming PCS auctions.
PCS operators to date generally have been divided between GSM technology and rival Code Division Multiple Access technology, while AT&T Corp. has chosen to deploy Time Division Multiple Access technology in its network.
“We looked carefully at alternative PCS technologies and came to the conclusion that PCS-1900 is the only option which meets our goal of providing reliable, innovative services to our customers,” said Don Warkentin, president and chief executive officer of APT.
“PCS-1900’s strong feature set, which offers integrated voice, data, fax and messaging services, supports APT’s mission to provide high-value personal communications services for our customers. It also allows us to offer meaningful differentiation from our competitors,” he said.
In particular, APT noted that an exclusive feature of PCS-1900 technology is the Smart Card, which stores personal subscriber preferences, features and other information separate from the handset.
“It (the Smart Card) is important to customers because it provides the basis for truly personalized, secure service offerings,” Warkentin said. “The customer’s service profile, personal phone list and roaming profile will all be stored on the Smart Card.” Warkentin added the card provides highly secure authentication, eliminating the problem of cloning that is common in the cellular industry.
Another advantage APT sees with the technology is seamless roaming between PCS-1900 systems throughout North America. APT said the PCS-1900 allows potential international Smart Card roaming to 156 operators in 85 countries and enhances roaming with higher levels of feature interoperability with other PCS-1900 users in the United States.
APT, a subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems Inc., won eight broadband PCS licenses at auction including those for Minneapolis/St. Paul, Tampa/St. Petersburg/Orlando, Fla., Houston, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Mo., Columbus, Ohio, Alaska and Guam. The GSM technology will give APT a stronghold in its markets by allowing it to introduce PCS before its rival operators, the company said.
“The PCS-1900 technology is an upbanded version of the proven and mature GSM standard that has been in commercial use throughout the world since 1992,” Warkentin said. “This allows us to move quickly and confidently to deploy our service, giving us a distinct competitive advantage.”
