Six-month-old personal communications services contender Sprint Spectrum is capitalizing on its choice of digital technology to forge international roaming agreements, just as it did to gain time-to-market advantages in its Washington, D.C./Baltimore service area.
Sprint Spectrum chose the established Global System for Mobile communications standard-PCS 1900 in the United States-for its network rollout and was able to introduce service last November. Now, the company is beginning to sign roaming agreements with other GSM carriers around the world.
“We have Western Europe about sewn up,” said Anne Schelle, the company’s vice president for external affairs.
France Telecom Mobiles just announced a roaming agreement with the company. The accord allows France Telecom Mobiles’ Itineris service subscribers who have selected the “Option Monde” international plan to use their service throughout Sprint Spectrum’s market, the company said. And Sprint Spectrum subscribers can roam on France Telecom’s network.
Schelle said her company also has signed roaming agreements with other GSM carriers in England, Italy and Germany.
Currently, subscribers can buy or rent a phone that operates on the foreign frequency band when they roam there but dual-band 900 MHz MHz phones should be available next year, Schelle said.
More importantly, subscribers can keep using their home phone number by inserting a Subscriber Identity Module card-containing complete subscriber information-into the new phone for follow-me roaming services. “This is the beauty of the GSM platform,” Schelle said. “Your phone isn’t what has all the information about you. The smart card has it.”
Schelle noted that Washington is a major destination for European travelers and about 10 to 20 percent of Sprint Spectrum’s subscriber base is composed of high-end business users.
“This [GSM roaming] is a business-sector service. Corporate entities such as Mobil Oil have approached us about this,” she said.
Sprint Spectrum also is reportedly working on roaming agreements with GSM carriers in Asia and the Middle East.
“Being a member of the GSM MoU Association provides for uniform roaming agreements,” Schelle said.
The Sprint Spectrum venture in Washington/Baltimore is owned 49.5 percent by Bethesda, Md.-based American Personal Communications, which received a pioneer’s preference license for the market from the Federal Communications Commission.
