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Cingular Wireless to Provide Wireless Priority Service to Improve Emergency Communications

Posted on: Thursday, 14 October 2004, 06:00 CDT

DALLAS, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Cingular Wireless recently was awarded a contract by the National Communications System (NCS) to provide Wireless Priority Service (WPS) to the country's authorized emergency response personnel. Cingular has launched WPS throughout its network in Texas, as well as a number of other select markets across the country.

Cingular expects WPS to be deployed across much of its network by the end of 2004, with total network deployment completed by the summer of 2005.

WPS is now available and provides authorized Federal, State, and local government leaders and critical private sector leaders and decision makers with priority wireless service during times of emergency. In concert with the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS), WPS dramatically improves cellular call completion rates. In times of congestion, authorized users are moved to the front of the queue, greatly increasing their chances of call completion.

At the same time, WPS is designed to have a negligible impact on everyday cellular users, providing priority service to vital decision makers without restricting the public's ability to gain access to those same networks. WPS does not enable users to preempt existing calls or to monopolize cellular services.

"WPS is an extremely important tool to provide to key national security and emergency preparedness personnel during disaster and emergency situations," said Steve Schoonmaker, Cingular's vice president and general manager for North Texas "Cingular recognizes how important WPS is to those who must direct well-coordinated emergency responses. Cingular's commitment is to improve homeland security by facilitating a faster, more widespread deployment of WPS."

Computer Sciences Corporation, the NCS's integration contractor for the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service and the Wireless Priority Service, was responsible for selecting Cingular as a participating WPS provider.

The National Communications System, part of the Department of Homeland Security's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate, consists of 23 Federal member departments and agencies and is responsible for ensuring the availability of a viable national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) communications infrastructure.

Additional information regarding the NCS WPS program is available on the NCS website at http://wps.ncs.gov/ .

About Cingular Wireless

Cingular Wireless, a joint venture between SBC Communications and BellSouth , serves more than 25 million voice and data customers across the United States. A leader in mobile voice and data communications, Cingular is the only U.S. wireless carrier to offer Rollover(SM), the wireless plan that lets customers keep their unused monthly minutes. Cingular is the largest provider of GSM services in the United States, and has a 100 percent digital GSM/GPRS footprint across its service area. It also launched the world's first commercial deployment of wireless services using Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology. Cingular also provides corporate e-mail and other advanced data services through its GPRS, EDGE and Mobitex packet data networks. Details of the company are available at http://www.cingular.com/ .

Cingular Wireless

CONTACT: Frank Merriman of Cingular, +1-972-774-4802, orfrank.merriman@cingular.com

Web site: http://www.cingular.com/http://wps.ncs.gov/

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