Several global telecommunications players announced alliances or considerations for mergers during the last few weeks.
AT&T and British Telecom announced a strategic alliance designed to create seamless mobile communications services worldwide.
AT&T’s and BT’s new alliance, named Advance, will provide a new mobile global account services package, offering multinational customers global contracts and consolidated management information.
Agreements on voice interoperability between the TDMA and GSM operator community will play a large role in linking the two companies’ mobile-phone assets, said AT&T officials. AT&T and BT also have agreed to take a common position on third-generation mobile and mobile Internet standards to converge TDMA and GSM standards.
In a separate announcement, Bell Atlantic confirmed it is in discussions to forge a mobile telephony alliance with Vodafone AirTouch. Vodafone AirTouch said one possible scenario, when and if a joint venture is formed, would be a spinoff of its wireless business in an initial public offering. That entity would have a market valuation of US$70 billion to US$80 billion, analysts said.
Besides saving each company the cost of building a national network or buying other carriers, the partnership also would allow them to avoid roaming charges when their customers make calls on outside networks.
Also, two U.S. GSM mobile phone operators, Voice-Stream Wireless and Aerial Communications, announced plans to merge. The combined carrier would create the largest GSM operator in the United States.
VoiceStream merged with Omnipoint Communications, a third U.S. GSM operator, in June.
Finland’s Sonera has a US$200 million investment in Aerial, and it said it would invest an additional US$500 million in VoiceStream at the closing of the Omnipoint merger.
