DENVER-Personal communications services operator Western Wireless Corp. launched its VoiceStream service last Thursday in Denver, promising rates at least 20 percent lower than AT&T Wireless Services Inc.’s digital cellular rates.
The company said it’s Global System for Mobile communications network, supplied by Northern Telecom Inc., is the largest completely digital network in the Front Range. It has chosen to compare itself with AT&T because its coverage areas most resemble AT&T’s, said Craig Cavey, the newly appointed general manager of the Denver operation. “We’re comparing AT&T as the next best choice,” he said.
Western Wireless said coverage exists from Cheyenne, Wyo., to Pueblo, Colo., and includes Evergreen, Colo., to the west and Denver International Airport to the east. Sprint PCS, which launched 1900 MHz commercial Code Division Multiple Access service March 31, provides coverage for the greater Metro Denver/Boulder and Longmont area as well as portions of six counties surrounding Denver. Sprint does not have coverage at the Denver airport and is charging half-price rate plans for a year. AirTouch Communications Inc. launched CDMA cellular service for its high-end business users in April.
Western Wireless said its lowest priced rate plan is $20 for 60 minutes and 29 cents per minute for the peak rate and off-peak rate. AT&T charges $27 for the same number of minutes, 35 cents per minute for the peak rate and 10 cents for the off-peak rate, said Western Wireless. The price gap becomes larger with the next rate plan as Western Wireless is charging $40 for 180 minutes while AT&T is charging $70 for 165 minutes.
VoiceStream customers will receive the first minute of each incoming call free, toll-free calls anywhere in Colorado and Wyoming and a rate of 10 cents per minute for calls between two Western Wireless phones. Features included with the service are paging, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting and two-way text messaging. Handsets will cost around $150. Sprint is charging about $200.
Western Wireless also has introduced in all of its markets InfoStream data service that allows users to send faxes and e-mail and access office databases and the Internet from their laptop computer using a VoiceStream phone.
“Past wireless data services had to convert information from an analog wave signal to the digital ones and zeros of computer language when transmitting to computers,” said Robert Dotson, vice president of marketing. “The technology did not appeal to a broad consumer market because it was slow and unreliable.”
To use the service, a customer connects a PCS phone to a data card into a laptop or handheld computer. The data card and wireless phone connector package costs $280. All data transmissions are billed at the customer’s regular wireless airtime rate, plus a $5 monthly user fee.
