AT&T Wireless Services Inc. launched Interim Standard 136 cellular digital service in 40 major markets last week using the label PCS, deliberately trying to confuse the technology distinctions between cellular service at 900 MHz and personal communications services at 2 GHz. AT&T thinks customers won’t know the difference as they are using their all-in-one digital handsets.
They won’t.
It took awhile to realize AT&T was actually implementing next-generation digital cellular service instead of launching service in its new PCS markets. AT&T’s public relations machine should be commended. The only place the word “cellular” appears in AT&T’s announcement for the consumer press is next to the cellular phone numbers for industry contracts.
Digital cellular service is being turned on throughout the country-not because cellular carriers need more capacity in their networks-but as a pre-emptive strike against PCS providers.
AT&T’s attempt to further confuse the marketplace, using the word “PCS” equally to define its cellular and PCS markets, will be successful.
What will this mean to PCS operators?
Free advertising for the Sprint’s and MCI-NextWave’s of the world. The cellular industry certainly enjoys a positive image, and I doubt that will tarnish despite all of the “PCS” marketing that will take place. As many cellular executives and analysts are quick to point out, cellular service has risen in foreign markets where PCS/PCN service has been commercially deployed.
But many smaller PCS players will only be able to look with their noses pressed up against the wireless revenues window instead of being allowed entry into the store.
The reality of competition between the different wireless segments will far surpass what people imagined.
Nextel Communications Inc. just bought Pittencrieff’s specialized mobile radio operations-that’s the biggest SMR operator buying the second biggest operator. Nextel also just received more financing than it originally planned in a time when numerous PCS operators are scrambling for money.
Bigger, bigger, bigger.
Options, offerings, customer service, reputation, and yes, name brand, will figure into each equation when trying to determine which companies will have successful wireless operations in 10 years. But price, price, price still is the biggest attraction to the mass markets.
And cellular operators didn’t have to pay billions of dollars for their licenses.
