Sprint Officially Moves Ahead to 3G

Sprint PCS Group Thursday launched its high-speed cellular data service nationwide and said it has signed on heavyweight partners including Accenture, IBM, and PwC Consulting to help develop solutions for enterprise customers.

Sprint PCS now offers 50kbps to 70kbps data service on what it calls its PCS Vision network through all of the 25,000-plus cell sites on its network. Charles Levine, president of Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint PCS, said in a statement that this makes the company "the first U.S. carrier to offer next-generation service nationwide" as opposed to competitors who have been rolling out their high speed data services market by market over the past year.

Ritch Blasi, a spokesperspn for AT&T Wireless Services in Redmond, Washington, acknowledges that Sprint was able to offer nationwide coverage first, "but only by a few months. Our high-speed service will be nationwide by the end of the year."

Pricing Plan

Like its competitors, Sprint PCS has adopted per-megabyte pricing, which works out to roughly $1 per megabyte for heavy users and $2 per megabyte for less frequent users. Phil Bowman, Sprint PCS vice president for business marketing, says in an interview that for a limited time the company will have an "all you can eat" introductory offer of unlimited usage for $49.99 a month. That will increase to $99.99 a month--directly matching the unlimited usage prices offered by Verizon Wireless, in Bedminster New Jersey.

But, Bowman says, Sprint PCS will eventually phase out the unlimited usage price scheme because it believes its package plans offer a better deal to the average user. He says in-house studies show that in most cases the plan offering 70MB of data per month for $79.99 will satisfy all but the most voracious mobile workers.

Bowman adds that Sprint PCS will provide discounted prices to large enterprises, but he declines to provide any specifics. The company will also roll out a new telemetry service hosted on its new third generation network to satisfy the large fleet users who send and receive short "bursty" packets of data from multiple mobile units. The telemetry service will also support applications such as remote utility meter reading.

By deciding to use per-megabyte pricing like the other cellular carriers, Sprint runs the risk of confusing customers who have a hard time estimating their mobile data usage, says Tim Scannell, an analyst at Shoreline Research in Quincy, Massachusetts. "The problem with all high-speed wireless plans is cost," he says.

Going to Work

Bowman says Sprint PCS wants to land as many large enterprise customers as possible for its new 3G network, which was built to allow easy access to enterprise e-mail systems. Sprint is also offering a Handspring Treo PDA priced at $499 that can be quickly and easily tied into corporate e-mail systems, he said. Sprint PCS will charge $10 a month for a single user of the e-mail service and $5 a month per user for enterprises who host their e-mail systems through Sprint PCS.

Gary Robertson, chief technology officer at Delphi in Troy, Michigan says that while Sprint may boast of nationwide coverage, he remains skeptical of such claims because cellular companies have built their networks to serve major population centers. Since he experiences dropped voice calls in Detroit on both the AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless networks, Robertson says he isn't about to provide users with a laptop or PDA cellular data service that could be equally uncertain.

Robertson also says he believes Sprint PCS "made a mistake" by basing its network on Code Division Multiple Access technology used primarily in the U.S. rather than the next generation General Packet Radio Service of the Global System for Mobile Communications standard used in Europe.

International companies such as Delphi want international standards, Robertson says.