The telephony services being introduced by MCI Communications Corp’s new Rutherford, New Jersey partner Nextel Communications Inc will use Motorola Inc’s Integrated Radio Service technology. Motorola is a major shareholder in Nextel, having agreed to hand its own Specialised Mobile Radio properties over to Nextel in exchange for equity. The partners say the technology is capable of supporting advanced wireless digital voice and data communications, and will enable the partners to offer users a single telephone number that will work anywhere in the US – and now Canada. As such, they will compete head-on with AT&T Co’s planned Personal Communications Services, which will be launched as a result of its plan to buy McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. As regards the May auction of Personal Communications Services frequencies, MCI now says that it will bid in those regions where Nextel does not have a licence, or where it feels it needs to boost Nextel’s coverage. However, a spokesman stressed that the company intends to offer a seamless service, so that users are not aware if they are using Specialised Mobile Radio technology, or cellular. The Nextel deal does, however, have ramifications for MCI’s existing partners. In November, MCI announced it was forming a laboratory to explore Personal Communications Services technology, with partners including L M Ericsson Telefon AB, Northern Telecom Ltd, Nokia Oy, and Telular Corp – at that stage, the plan was to use cellular Time Division Multiple Access technology. With the Nextel deal, however, this effort has become more marginalised: according to MCI, TDMA cellular technology will be used in those regions where MCI is successful in bidding for a Personal Communications Services licence, but since this represents just 5% of the US, MCI’s partners will end up with a far smaller slice of the cake than they had expected.
