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Subject: MCI Joins Wireless Phone Race; Firm Seeks Partners For National Network<By
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 04:53:22 EST
Message-ID: <13.1992Nov10.045323@AmeriCast.com>

MCI Joins Wireless Phone Race; Firm Seeks Partners For National
Network<By Cindy Skrzycki<Washington Post Staff Writer=

 Not to be left out of the race to build the next generation of
wireless communications technology, MCI Communications Corp. yes-
terday asked the Federal Communications Commission to award a
license to a consortium of companies that would build and operate
a national network that would allow people to make or receive
calls anywhere in the country using tiny pocket phones.

 District-based MCI would be a minority partner in such a consor-
tium. It said that it hopes to attract the interest of about two
dozen companies - other telephone companies, cable television
operators, entrepreneurs and those working on the kinds of tech-
nology that will create such a network.

 "MCI is looking to partner with others who are technically and
financially capable of developing" the technology and services
for the emerging personal communications systems (PCS), said
Daniel F. Akerson, president and chief operating officer of MCI.
"Such a network would offer a new form of high quality, digital
wireless voice and data communications utilizing low power,
lightweight pocket telephones and hand-held computers."

 Dozens of other telecommunications companies also yesterday
filed comments, responding to the FCC's call to shape one of the
hottest emerging industries since cellular telephones were born
almost a decade ago.

 To be decided is who should operate the systems, how licenses
should be awarded, and what geographic areas should be covered by
each license. At stake are billions of dollars in investment and
the actual deployment of such a network, which could begin to be
built as early as 1994, industry experts said.

 The pressure on MCI to throw its hat into the PCS ring intensi-
fied last week, when AT&T announced a $3.8 billion strategic al-
liance with the nation's largest cellular telephone company,
McCaw Communications Inc.

 "The AT&T-McCaw deal has changed the landscape," said Susan
Lynner, vice president of Washington research for Prudential
Securities Inc.

 Jerry Taylor, MCI's president of consumer markets, said yester-
day that MCI was considering the consortium concept long before
AT&T and McCaw announced their proposed pact. He also suggested
that MCI is now a very attractive partner since AT&T's dance card
is filling up and Sprint has its own proposed merger with Centel.

 MCI asked the FCC to award three national licenses to consortia
after hearings are held to pick the winners. The idea would be
that a consortium would have a "national manager," such as MCI.
MCI would bring to the consortium its expertise in billing and
collection, the technical standards for operating such a system,
marketing plans and network "smarts" that would allow calls to
"find" recipients wherever they are, the company argued.

 "It would enable participants otherwise too small to survive in
a national or even regional PCS market to play a significant role
in PCS nonetheless," MCI told the FCC.

 Wayne Schelle, chairman of American Personal Communications, a
local company partly owned by The Washington Post that is working
on PCS technology, countered that national licenses are not a
good idea.

 "They are too big and unwieldy. We think they are anti-
competitive. This is not like awarding a national license in Cos-
ta Rica.  We're talking about three million square miles,"
Schelle said.



Also unresolved is the role that the nation's regional telephone
companies with cellular telephone subsidiaries would play in this
new industry.



Bell Atlantic Corp. suggested yesterday in its comments to the
FCC that at least two national licenses be awarded that would in-
clude participation by local phone companies.

 So far, the FCC has received some 200 applications for PCS ex-
perimental tests. The commission tentatively has given "pioneer
preferences" to three companies that it felt had technologies or
approaches to PCS that are unconventional, including one offered
by American Personal Communications.  02:10 11-10C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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