LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.-Indus Inc., a new personal communications services company based in Milwaukee, announced Feb. 11 a vendor financing agreement with Hughes Network Systems Inc. and a roaming agreement with AT&T Wireless Services Inc.
Indus is the first winner of Federal Communications Commission C-block PCS licenses to join Universal Wireless Communications, a Redmond, Wash.-based consortium of vendors and carriers involved in promoting the up-banded version of digital Time Division Multiple Access cellular service. Representatives of Indus, Hughes and AT&T Wireless announced their agreements at the UWC Global Summit here last week.
Indus, whose licenses cover a population of 1.8 million, expects to launch commercial service by late summer, said Kailas J. Rao, president. “My sense is we will turn on our switch only when we have 100 percent coverage and our subscribers will be able to roam in the United States.” .
AT&T Wireless’ TDMA digital cellular network, which AT&T calls Digital PCS, will cover about 80 percent of the U.S. population when completed. AT&T Wireless recently entered a strategic alliance with Rogers Cantel Mobile Communications Inc. in Canada to offer bundled services under the AT&T Digital PCS brand name to subscribers in an area covering a population of more than 240 million in North America within 18 months.
Indus will sell its PCS services under the Indus brand name, and will offer its subscribers dual-mode, dual-band phones usable on both 800 MHz and 1900 MHz TDMA networks. “We haven’t yet decided on our handset makers,” Rao said.
Hughes agreed to supply Indus with $50 million in digital PCS network equipment for Indus’ system, which will be deployed in Milwaukee and seven surrounding counties. Hughes also agreed to make an equity investment of an undisclosed amount.
“The equipment financing will be staged according to the rollout,” said Arunas Slekys, vice president of digital cellular networks for Hughes. “We won’t hide our equity investment, and we’ll release that information when we have finalized agreements with other investors that are going on now.”
Indus service will be based on the Hughes GMH 2000 digital wireless system. However, the agreement with Indus is Hughes’ first for provision of infrastructure for IS-136 PCS in the 1.9 GHz band.
