Microcell continues aggressive GPRS expansion, downplays competitor’s plan

Executives at Microcell Connexions Inc say plans by competitor Rogers Wireless Communications Inc to overlay a similar network architecture doesn’t threaten its company’s aggressive expansion plans. Rajiv Pancholy, president and COO at Microcell Connexions, says they are sticking with a game plan set out early last year. "At the end of the day, the consumer doesn’t care about CDMA or GPRS. As a consumer you want functionality," Pancholy told Report on Wireless. "The battle eventually has to be fought at the street level." Rogers announced plans late last year to overlay a GSM-GPRS architecture onto its existing TDMA network (RoW, Dec. 11/00). COMPETITOR OR POTENTIAL SUITOR?Rogers and Microcell will soon share the same GPRS technology platform – an important consideration when you’re looking at growing market share through acquisitions. Most analysts expect Montreal-based Microcell is a prime target for acquisition. During the Christmas party circuit, Microcell Telecommunications president and CEO, André Tremblay made no secret that his company likely wouldn’t be around in three years. Rogers failed last year in its bid to buy Vidéotron. Maybe Microcell is an easier Quebec target.Microcell recently completed live trials testing network speeds and reliability, and according to Pancholy, there were no real surprises in the trial. "We were initially concerned about what this might do to the reach from a cell site perspective, (but) we’ve been very, very pleasantly surprised," he says. Toronto is the first city that Microcell has deployed GPRS into, and the company is now working to get the rest of its operating territory online. "From now until the middle of next year, we’ll be deploying this on a nation-wide basis and our objective is that we’ll have GPRS in the network in every aspect, in every city, every corridor that’s covered," he adds. The trial – conducted in conjunction with Waterloo ON-based Research in Motion Ltd (RIM) – proved that data throughput speeds of about 30 kbs could be attained through handsets and that those speeds increased to about 50 kbs when a PCMCIA wireless modem card was used with a laptop. While GPRS promises speeds of about 115 kbs, Pancholy doesn’t think those kinds of throughput rates will emerge until the latter half of this year. RIM will be the first company to take advantage of the GPRS fabric, says Pancholy. It contributed both the devices and applications to the technology trial. "It’s one thing to have a network technology, but the other thing is to have the devices and the applications to go with it," he explains. Market will be divided into three segments, based on data rates The trial revealed that two levels of speeds could be attained by using different devices and Pancholy predicts the market will be segmented along those data rate levels. For those using the GPRS-enabled handset primarily for voice, there will be limited need for the higher data speeds. The laptop user will require the higher bit rates. Most users will land somewhere in the middle, requiring rates in the 30 to 50 kbs range. But Pancholy says the whole idea of GPRS is not the higher bit rates going up and downstream, it’s the always-on capability. "The strength is coming from the fact that it is always on and working in the background, rather than the fact that they need to extract a lot of high speed and throughput," he says. Two of the primary applications tested were mobile email and calendar management. Pancholy explains that if a change was made to a corporate user’s schedule by his or her assistant, the modification would automatically be updated on the device. "It should percolate through to (the) handheld device without having to overtly synch it up," he adds.

Microcell continues aggressive GPRS expansion, downplays competitor’s plan

News | 01/08/2001 5:00 am EST

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