NEW YORK-The Wireless Alliance L.L.C. is testing a dual-mode service that would allow callers to dial one phone number to reach customers on either their cellular or personal communications services handsets.
Under the plan, incoming calls will “group ring” both phones. If neither is answered, voice mail will take a message, said Bob Moore, director of the Alliance.
Rural Cellular Corp. headquartered in Alexandria, Minn., owns 51 percent of the Alliance, and Aerial Communications Inc., based in Chicago, owns the remainder through a subsidiary. The alliance is building PCS networks in Duluth, Minn., Superior, Wis., and Fargo and Grand Forks, N.D. Commercial service is anticipated to begin late next year.
“It isn’t a dual-mode phone but a dual-mode service through technology under testing to tie switches together,” Wesley E. Schultz, chief financial officer of Rural Cellular, said at a telecommunications conference sponsored by The Robinson-Humphrey Co. L.L.C., Atlanta.
Richard P. Ekstrand, chief executive officer of Rural Cellular, said the carrier is working with its two switch providers, Nokia Corp. and Northern Telecom Inc., on the dual-mode service plan.
“Technically, Nortel has a switch feature called `group routing’,” Moore said. Rural Cellular uses a Nortel switch for its Advanced Mobile Phone Service cellular network.
“We want to make sure we can route calls to our Nokia switch, which supports [Global System for Mobile communications PCS], and to make sure that (unanswered) calls get routed to the voice-mail platform,” Moore said.
A product description fact sheet, which Shawn Steward, a spokesman for Nokia, provided to RCR, says in part: “The Nokia GSM 1900/IS-41 Interworking Location Register product allows GSM 1900 service providers to offer ubiquitous coverage for their roaming subscribers while they deploy their national GSM 1900 networks.
“Roaming GSM 1900 subscribers with dual-mode GSM 1900/AMPS mobile stations or with AMPS-only mobile stations can be validated and can receive calls in AMPS networks via the GSM 1900/IS-41 ILR.”
Moore said the optional dual-mode service is likely to appeal to customers who already have an AMPS phone, often a mobile phone that already is installed in their cars.
“We’re saying let them keep their AMPS phone and buy the GSM phone because they love all of its digital features,” he said. “Because GSM has attractive rates and features, customers probably will spend the bulk of their time on the GSM phone.
“But outside the cities like Fargo where we’ll offer PCS, they’ll use AMPS.”
Ekstrand said Rural Cellular also is likely at some time to offer customers dual-mode phones. But he said the company is taking a cautious approach to these new electronic devices.
“We don’t think there will be masses of dual-mode phones available till the middle of next year, and we want to test them first,” Ekstrand said.
Moore said the Alliance expects that a certain portion of its customers will, in fact, prefer dual-mode handsets to dual-mode service.
“We think there are a lot of people who will want a dual-mode phone, but there are others who won’t, (partly) because using it in AMPS uses up the battery (faster),” he said.
