AT&T Network Systems unveiled a new wireless business telephone system to help keep workers in voice contact as they roam about their building, office complex or campus.
AT&T said its Air Extension system will support wireless public-network-based business services in the new personal communications services spectrum using the Personal Access Communications System digital standard.
In addition to giving users the same phone number for their desk phone and portable phone, AT&T’s Air Extension system provides wireless users with both wireline voice quality and conveniences such as abbreviated dialing, conference calling, call waiting, call pickup and call transfer, the company said.
These calling features are similar to those provided to wired phone users by the Centrex services offered by telephone companies. And, like Centrex, AT&T said it will market Air Extension to telephone companies for resale to end-user companies. AT&T emphasizes that end-user companies will be buying a service, not their own network equipment.
“The Air Extension system will dramatically enhance the way people in business communicate. It will improve productivity by curtailing much of the inefficient, frustrating telephone tag and paging that occurs today,” said Susan Weber, AT&T’s director of PCS offer management and development.
AT&T said the components of its Air Extension system include radio ports that transmit and receive signals to and from the handheld phones, a radio port control unit that sets up links between the radio ports and the central office, and a wireless network controller in the central office that interfaces with the service provider’s landline switch.
The radio ports and radio port control units will be supplied by Hughes Network Systems Inc.
Hughes was a founding member of the PACS Providers Forum, which champions the digital standard for the 1.9 GHz PCS market in the United States, especially for C-, D-, E- and F-block licensees. AT&T said it is thinking about joining the group.
PACS is based on Time Division Multiple Access technology and is optimized as a low-cost solution for wireless local loop, pedestrian venues, commuting routes and indoor wireless applications, the Forum said.
AT&T said Air Extension will be available in the second half of next year. No announcements have been made about handset vendors.
