SEATTLE-AirTouch Communications Inc. announced large business customers in western Washington now have access to Code Division Multiple Access cellular service.
“In the past, we have launched new services to business and retail customers simultaneously,” said Julie Dexter Berg, executive vice president and general manager for AirTouch in the Northwest, Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions. “But with new competitors targeting our largest customers, it’s important that we focus our efforts on introducing Powerband service to our large business customers and then concentrate on a retail launch later this quarter.”
Marketed under the name Powerband, the company’s 13-kilobit-per-second vocoder CDMA network covers the Canadian border to Olympia, Wash., and from the Cascade mountains to the Olympic Peninsula, said the company.
Rates for Powerband charter users are comparable to their existing analog service, said AirTouch. Retail pricing has not been announced.
The dual-mode Sony-branded phones are supplied by Qualcomm Personal Electronics, a partnership between Qualcomm Inc. and Sony Electronics Inc.
