After spending nearly $400 million to acquire fixed wireless service providers last year, MCI WorldCom is now testing the high-speed service.
MCI WorldCom Tuesday announced that it has started trials with business and residential customers for Multipoint Multichannel Distribution Service (MMDS) in Baton Rouge, La.; Memphis, Tenn.; and Jackson, Miss. MMDS operates in the 2.5 GHz to 2.7 GHz range and can support up to 10M bit/sec.
The trial services are called WarpOne and Warp 310, which may not be the commercial names of the services when they are rolled out later this year. WarpOne is a fixed wireless service for small to midsize businesses that supports symmetrical data transmission speeds of about 1.5M bit/sec. The service is being offered at about $300 to $600 per month, says Kerry McKelvey, vice president of marketing for MCI WorldCom's wireless solutions division.
Warp 310 is a consumer service that supports symmetrical 310K bit/sec data transmission services for about $40 per month.
The merged MCI WorldCom and Sprint will offer MMDS services in more than 100 markets by the end of 2001, McKelvey says. Sprint's MMDS acquisitions will address at least 55% of the 100 markets where MCI WorldCom plans to offer services. Sprint spent more than $800 million acquiring four MMDS service providers last year.
MCI WorldCom and Sprint started buying fixed wireless companies in 1999 for two reasons. The first reason is that the service providers were looking for alternative broadband service options. As new service providers and longtime rivals such as AT&T continue to diversify with cable modem and digital subscriber line service offerings, it's clear that MCI WorldCom and Sprint also needed high-speed services that will differentiate them. The second reason is the MMDS companies were struggling financially - in fact, most were in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. So MCI WorldCom and Sprint were able to pick up the MMDS service providers at what were believed to be good prices.
The Federal Communications Commission issued MMDS licenses 15 years ago with the idea that they would be used to offer asymmetric wireless cable television services, but those services never caught on. Now the FCC is in the process of approving the MMDS licenses for two-way communications, but still only a handful of cities have symmetrical service approval.
MCI WorldCom's deployment of MMDS services in 100 markets is not only dependent on the FCC approving two-way data transmissions, but also hinges on MMDS standard developments and equipment manufacturers rolling out enough gear. Now that MCI WorldCom and Sprint are in the MMDS business, industry watchers fully expect carrier-class equipment to become readily available, but standards that would support interoperability among various gears are still a way off.
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