BATON ROUGE, La.-C-block license holder Meretel Communications L.P. is expected this week to launch personal communications services in Baton Rouge, La., using dual-mode, dual-band Code Division Multiple Access handsets.
Eatel Inc., one of Meretel’s owners, is introducing the CDMA service under the Eatel name. The company is purchasing airtime at wholesale from Meretel, which won five C-block PCS licenses that cover Baton Rouge, Hammand and Lafayette, La., and Beaumont-Port Arthur and Lufkin-Nacogdoches, Texas, just across the Louisiana border.
Eatel is a 62-year-old independent telephone company that operates local phone service in Ascension and Livingston parishes in Louisiana. The company also sells paging, long-distance service, Internet access and business telephone systems in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Eatel operates a local paging network in those two cities and resells service to fill in wide area service gaps.
The company conducted a soft launch this weekend and expects to commence its hard launch by the end of this week. Eatel will introduce the service in Lafayette, La., which is west of Baton Rouge, by November, said Jane Baker, manager of wireless products for Eatel.
Eatel is offering a Sony Corp./Qualcomm Inc. handset and said it has secured some roaming agreements with surrounding analog cellular operators.
Meretel is the first PCS operator to launch in Baton Rouge. It beat out A- and B-block competitors Sprint Spectrum L.P. and PrimeCo Personal Communications L.P., which also operate 1.9 GHz CDMA systems.
Meretel’s other owners are Mercury Cellular & Paging, a cellular carrier in Louisiana, Kansas, Mississippi, and Alabama, and Fort Bend Telephone Co. of Fort Bend, Texas. Meretel also plans to sell airtime to the other partners.
