AT&T Wireless Frugal In WCDMA Rollout

AT&T Wireless and partner NTT DoCoMo said in a statement Thursday that they plan to launch WCDMA wireless technology in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle and Dallas by the end of December 2004. That is just a fraction of the number of cities the two companies had originally planned to enable when they announced a strategic alliance in November, 2000.

The agreement called for NTT DoCoMo to purchase $9.8 billion in AT&T stock and license the iMode brand, it's high-speed wireless service, for use by AT&T Wireless in the United States. At the time, AT&T believed it would launch WCDMA service in 70 of the top 100 markets by 2004.

In reality, AT&T has just completed the U.S. rollout of its 2.5G GPRS service and plans to convert the majority of those networks to the 3G EDGE technology, starting next year.

EDGE technology promises network speeds of up to 384 kbps, while WCDMA can reach peak speeds of up to 2 Mbps. AT&T Wireless said all WCDMA phones it sells in the United States will be compatible with GRPS and EDGE.

AT&T Wireless executives said the scaled-back WCDMA deployment plan will allow the company to cover some of the most promising U.S. markets while maintaining a prudent level of capital expenditures.

AT&T Wireless said it has formed a special committee of its board of directors to oversee the results of the four-city launch and make recommendations to the full Board about the scope and timing of future WCDMA rollouts. The committee will include NTT DoCoMo representation.