AT&T Launches GPRS
from the Last-to-adopt-GSM-first-to-launch-GPRS dept
AT&T launched its new GSM/GPRS serivce in Seattle today. This is significant for a number of reasons. First, they are the third national US carrier to support GSM (Voicestream and parts of Cingular). In theory this means that US wireless consumers will be able to take advantage of the worldwide support for GSM and have access to cooler handsets and services and be able to easily roam internationally with one wireless number. In addition, the announcement is significant in that AT&T was the last to commit to GSM, but has beat the incumbant GSM carriers in introducing packet-switched data services. GPRS itself is interesting in that it should enable much more interesting data services than we have today that are charged per bytes transferred and always online. GPRS will also compliment upcoming support for Bluetooth at which point we'll really need Dockers Mobile Pants for our personal area networks.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
