BellSouth Corp. is not letting its minority stake in wireless operator Cingular Wireless L.L.C. deter its own wireless efforts as the regional telecommunications provider announced a pair of wireless initiatives.
BellSouth said it plans to deploy a wide area wireless broadband network beginning in August covering parts of Athens, Ga., and later expand to parts of Florida. The network will use BellSouth’s licensed BRS and WCS radio spectrum and Navini Networks’ pre-WiMAX Ripwave equipment to transmit signals between local radio towers and non-line-of-sight desktop modems.
BellSouth said the network trial will target both residential and business customers and will include various service options, ranging in price, features and speed. BellSouth added that the wireless broadband service would serve as an alternative to its wireline broadband offering as well as fill in urban/suburban areas where ADSL service is not available.
BellSouth has been trialing a similar service using Navini’s Ripwave technology in Daytona and Palatka, Fla., and has been testing wireless broadband services since 2000 when it launched a trial network in Houma, La.
Several companies, including Craig McCaw’s Clearwire Corp. in parts of Texas, Florida, Oregon and Minnesota; Speakeasy covering parts of Seattle; and NextWeb covering parts of Las Vegas, have recently announced similar pre-WiMAX deployments.
BellSouth also announced a business-oriented market trial integrating wireless and wireline communications that will allow employees to use one device to access a wide area wireless network when outside the office and a wireless local area network on a corporate campus.
The trial, which is being conducted in the Atlanta area with Grey Worldwide, uses Cingular’s network for the wide area connection and a charging cradle that integrates directly with BellSouth’s Voice over Internet Protocol phone system. BellSouth added the integration will enable users to have one number and one voicemail box for communications.
BellSouth also said the trial was part of an ongoing wireless/wireline integration initiative with Cingular that includes research and product development, sales programs and bundled offerings.
Cingular has announced similar initiatives with majority parent company SBC Communications Inc.
