Cingular Wireless L.L.C. said it will partner with its parent companies SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. to offer residential customers a single bucket of share-calling minutes between their wireline and wireless phones later this year.
Cingular said the MinuteShare service would include a single, shared bucket of wireline long-distance and wireless local and long-distance minutes. In addition, customers with unlimited local wireline service will be able to have that service on the same bill.
Cingular wireless services are currently sold though SBC and BellSouth sales channels and are included in bundled offerings by the companies.
“The MinuteShare service will move the companies well beyond the soft bundling of wireline and wireless services occurring today to full product integration,” said Marc Lefar, chief marketing officer at Cingular.
The MinuteShare service is currently being trialed in Texas with existing customers who had SBC local and domestic long-distance service and Cingular wireless service and is expected to be sold through the companies’ call centers and retail outlets when it’s launched.
Cingular is also reportedly set to launch EDGE services on its network within the next two months and is currently trialing the high-speed wireless technology in its Indianapolis market. The carrier said it is using infrastructure provided by Ericsson Inc. for the trial and plans to begin testing EDGE software from Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG later this month.
Testing of EDGE equipment from a fourth infrastructure provider, Nortel Networks Ltd., has reportedly been postponed until early next year due to technical issues.
Cingular also signed an agreement with Sony Pictures Entertainment Co. to jointly promote the upcoming “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” motion picture that is scheduled to be released later this month. The movie features the Sony Ericsson T316 handset, which will be sold exclusively through Cingular.
The agreement is set to include an advertising campaign, a downloadable Charlie’s Angels game, ring tones and a contest.
Cingular had a similar arrangement last year with Sony Pictures to promote “Spider-Man.”
