Expanding on its bidding in the Federal Communications Commission auction of the spectrum for new wireless services, Pacific Telesis Group Inc said it had bid $493m for the Los Angeles extended metropolitan area that covers much of Southern California and vice-president Robert Barada told the conference he thinks it has won that one. He said bidding in northern California – the San Francisco metropolitan area, is still active, and that Pacific Telesis had bid $177m as of last week. Its aim is to prevail in California, and its t whole bidding strategy has been based on a California First, policy – doing business solely in California, where it now is the major local phone service provider. Our deployment plan with PCS, assuming we are effective in the auctions, is to hit the ground running with deployment, he said, adding that the company had already chosen the technology it will use among the many contending for the Personal Communications Services market, going for the European Groupe Speciale Mobile digital cellular standard, which sounds as if it might be good news for L M Ericsson Telefon AB.
