SAN DIEGO-AirTouch Cellular announced it will provide Powerband digital cellular service, based on Code Division Multiple Access technology, to attendees and media at the Republican National Convention in San Diego.
“Our confidence in CDMA and the positive experience our customers are having in Los Angeles, made us accelerate the implementation of digital service in San Diego,” said Lee Cox, AirTouch president and chief executive officer.
AirTouch said the service will provide privacy, fraud protection, national roaming, wide local coverage, five hours of talk time and high voice quality. In addition, the company will use 13 kilobits-per-second vocoder technology. AirTouch inaugurated CDMA digital service in May in Los Angeles with an 8 kbps vocoder. The company plans to launch 13 kbps service there as well.
AirTouch will offer the Powerband digital service in the convention and downtown area and analog cellular service throughout the county to selected media representatives and other attendees at no charge, said the company.
Once the convention is over, AirTouch will complete construction of its Powerband network in the greater San Diego area and will begin to expand service by the beginning of next year.
Pacific Bell Mobile Services is the official wireless provider of the convention and will offer personal communications services handsets using Global System for Mobile communications technology to selected members of the convention.
