BellSouth Mobility DCS Thursday rolled out the nation’s first multistate personal communications services network, and the country’s fourth PCS system activation.
Service was launched in a cluster that involves three states-metropolitan Charlotte, N.C., which borders South Carolina; Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., southeast of Charlotte; and the Tennessee tri-city area of Bristol, Kingsport/Johnson City and Knoxville.
This initial rollout will cover about half of the 11.6 million pops under the PCS licenses won by BellSouth.
“We said we’d launch in July. We set that goal two years ago,” said Eric Ensor, president of BellSouth Mobility DCS. “We firmly believe being first to market is crucial to the success of technology in this region and to BellSouth Mobility DCS.”
BellSouth and the other two operators with commercial PCS systems in the United States built their networks using Global System for Mobile communications technology, which proponents have claimed would get PCS licensees up and running the fastest.
PCS enthusiasts also said they’d launch with lower prices. BellSouth Mobility DCS is offering prices 10 percent below those of the region’s cellular competitors, Ensor said.
“It depends how secure the cellular operator feels about their service as to whether they will drop their prices,” Ensor said. Cellular operators in Charlotte include Alltel Mobile Communications Inc. and Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile.
In Greenville, the cellular operators are Bell Atlantic Nynex and 360
