Wireless Broadband Race Tightens

Cingular, it seems, is all tuckered out from a series of complex tech overhauls. Not only is the company completing a difficult integration of AT&T Wireless' operations, it has been making a comprehensive tech changeover. Cingular is going to global systems for mobile, or GSM, tech from an older standard, time division multiple access, or TDMA. Adding its UMTS effort to the workload has been a little tough, says the person familiar with the work.

Rather than pull up lame in the broadband race, you'll see "some game playing going on."

"They will meet their launch date in the UMTS markets, but the 2005 budget will probably be cut and full buildout in those markets will not be completed by launch time," says the insider.

A Cingular representative says the original launch target hasn't changed, and though some money may get moved around from one market to another, the $6 billion spending plan hasn't been cut.

Meanwhile, Verizon and Sprint are pressing ahead on the evolution data-only, or EV-DO, front.

Sprint is trying out its EV-DO systems in a few markets now, and is expected to announce the official launch of the service later this summer in some 30 cities.

Verizon, at last count late in 2004, had 75,000 EV-DO subscribers. The company has not offered any updates, but still expects to have the network footprint large enough to be available to 150 million people. Reports earlier this year, however, showed sluggish sales.

Without a lot of big spending and so-called heavy lifting, T-Mobile has managed to sign on 450,000 Wi-Fi subscribers. The nation's largest Wi-Fi shop said this week that it plans to expand locations and roaming agreements to double its hot-spot count to 9,000.

"I see T-Mobile as the dark horse," says one money manager who does not own the stock.