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U.S. SMR CARRIER IN BID TO DEPLOY TETRA SERVICE

A U.S.-owned company is up against competition in its bid for digital dispatch radio spectrum in the United Kingdom, while also facing implementation of the never-deployed TETRA standard.

National Band Three Ltd. is wholly owned by Geotek Communications Inc. of Montvale, N.J. The four-year-old company operates a nationwide analog network in what the United Kingdom calls Band 3, former broadcast spectrum from 176.5 MHz to 223.5 MHz. NB3 has about 60,000 subscribers and expects to reach capacity by the end of 1997. The United Kingdom has reported 100,000 trunked mobile radio subscribers nationwide.

Earlier this year, the U.K. government agreed to release spectrum for Public Access Mobile Radio at 410-420 MHz paired with 420-430 MHz, a frequency band previously held by the military.

It has offered two national licenses and four companies have applied. A decision is expected this summer. The applicants are:

NB3-originally formed in 1992 and bought by Geotek in 1993.

National Transcommunications Ltd.-which owns a high-capacity national network of broadcast transmission stations. NTL was purchased for $360 million in April by the U.K.’s third largest cable operator, International CableTel Inc. CableTel said that through NTL, it intends to use and resell national network capacity to other operators.

Racal Network Services Ltd.-a new subsidiary of Racal Electronics plc of Berkshire. Racal is the original parent company of Vodafone Group plc. It builds U.K. military radio systems and runs the government data network. In January, Racal agreed to purchase the telecommunications system of British Rail for $200 million. The BR network will be mixed with Racal’s current network, which contains asynchronous transfer mode ability.

TetraLink Telecommunications Ltd.-a recently formed Canadian-owned entity that was created by the merger of two regional U.K. specialized mobile radio operators.

The race is on. The United Kingdom is asking the winning operators to deploy the Trans European Trunked Radio (TETRA) standard, a brand new digital standard supported by the European Union.

This means NB3 won’t be able to deploy the proprietary Frequency Hopping Multiple Access technology of Geotek if it wins the license. Since TETRA has never been commercially deployed, the winning operators will wait for the production of first-generation TETRA equipment.

Philips Telecom of Cambridge said it is in the latter stages of developing TETRA products and systems and anticipates commercial supply to begin in 1997.

The U.K. factory of Motorola Inc. in Basingstoke also expects its TETRA products to be commercially available in 1997.

Other vendors that are expected to produce TETRA products include Finland-based Nokia Corp., Sweden-based L.M. Ericsson and possibly Kenwood of Japan.

“TETRA is an immature standard and we have yet to see competitive pricing,” said Andrew Robb, manager of Geotek’s European Operations. After winners are announced, serious vendor contracting can begin, he said.

The U.K. government anticipates making more PAMR spectrum commercially available in the next few years; a review will be held in two years to consider additional TETRA licenses, said the Department of Trade & Industry.

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