AT&T Rides Sprint In Wireless Rerun

Three years after AT&T spun-off its wireless business into a separate company as a tracking stock, it is charting a return to that market. Last week, the Bedminster-based phone company signed a five-year deal to use Sprint’s nationwide cellular network. This will allow AT&T to offer wireless plans along with local and long- distance phone services to its 30 million subscribers. AT&T will be able to use its own brand name once the $41 billion purchase of AT&T Wireless by Atlanta’s Cingular Wireless is completed sometime later this year.

AT&T’s “virtual wireless carrier” model is common in Europe and similar to that of Virgin Mobile USA in Warren, which also uses the Sprint network. Although AT&T will use Sprint’s infrastructure, the two companies will compete for customers in the same markets. Patrick Zerbib, vice president at Adventis, a communications consulting firm in Boston, says the deal permits AT&T a quick launch of its wireless service without being tied to Sprint-it remains free to sign up with other carriers such as Verizon or Cingular. Copyright Snowden Publications, Inc. May 24, 2004