Although Pacific Telesis Group Inc’s plan to spin off its Pactel Cellular, PacTel Paging and PacTel International interests was presented as a return to concentration on its core regulated telephone business, it turns out that the California and Nevada Baby Bell has rather more ambitious plans for the future: it seems that the company has its eye on the upcoming auction of frequencies for Personal Communications Services, and that stripped of its cellular and paging interests, it would be free to focus on the new service, which many reckon will be cheaper than cellular and thus hold greater consumer appeal, the Wall Street Journal reported; under the spin-off plan, Pacific Telesis plans to sell about 12% of the wireless operations in a public offering that it hopes will raise $1,200m – which will presumably belong to that business rather than the parent; and sometime in the spring of 1994, the remaining 88% would be distributed pro rata to current Pacific Telesis holders.
