MCI Communciation Corp, determined to keep its newly-found niche in the wireless reselling market, is following up its Nationwide Cellular Service Inc acquisition (CI No 2,669) with a deal with another wireless reseller, Next Wave Telecom Inc. According to Reuter, the deal will allow MCI to connect its network to a system planned by Next Wave which provides Personal Communications Services, allowing customers to send both voice and data transmissions over wireless phones. The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, gives MCI the possibility of buying over 10 billion minutes of capacity over the next 10 years, to more than 110 million individuals in 63 areas, inclusidTerms of the deal also provide that MCI will provide support for the development and operations of NextWave’s Personal Communcations Services system. Last year, MCI made several fruitless efforts to break into the wireless market, and eventually had to make do with reselling, rather than directly providing its own services. In a period spanning over a year, the company abandoned a plan to join with 120 companies to form a pan-US wireless network, failed to provide a pan-US wireless service in partnership with Nextel Communications Inc, and subsequently didn’t appear at the US’ auction of the airwaves (CI NO 2,887).
