AT|amp|T begins testing wireless technology

The GPRS technology will eventually allow data transfers at 384 kbps and beyond

AT&T Wireless Services announced June 12 it has begun to test third-generation wireless technology at the AT&T Labs research center in Silicon Valley. The company has established a testbed for high-speed wireless data transfer using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) equipment from Mitsubishi, Motorola and Nortel Networks.

The network at AT&T Labs will be open to application software developers in Silicon Valley as well as AT&T engineers and technicians, according to an AT&T Wireless release. The test network will not be available commercially.

"GPRS technology is a cornerstone of new advanced wireless standards approved by the International Telecommunications Union," said David Nagel, chief technology officer of AT&T and president of AT&T Labs, in the release.

"GPRS is at the core of new EDGE (Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) electronics and will provide high speed data transfers that will eventually be deployed commercially at 384 kbps and beyond, many times faster than today's dial-up modems," Nagel added.

The company will also install GPRS test nodes at AT&T Wireless Services' headquarters in Redmond, Wash., and at AT&T Labs in Florham Park, N.J.

"Our focus in California is to work with application software developers to create new products and services that may exist on the final commercial network, which we hope to trial next year and then deploy in 2002," Nagel said.

Some industry analysts predict that there will be more than 1 billion subscribers around the world using wireless technology in the next three to four years. Today, there are more wireless phones sold annually than personal computers.

EDGE technology has been specified to provide:

High-speed data transfer rates of up to 384 kbps;

Global roaming; and

Advanced multimedia (digital video, digital audio, high resolution telemetry, etc.).

EDGE brings together two major digital standards: TDMA in the Americas (the standard AT&T uses for its digital PCS network) and GSM in Europe and Asia. Together, these two technologies cover more than 350 million customers around the world.