GPRS Catch 22

Voicestream, AT&T and Cingular have all started GPRS rollouts. But for the most part they are pretty low-key about actually selling the product. The service is expensive and not well marketed. The problem is that providing decent GPRS speeds reduces the networks voice capacity. But if carriers cap GPRS speeds then users will be dissapointed by the service and stop using it. And with Sprint and Verizon launching 1X, the GPRS carriers are going to have to meet their speeds. The solution to this problem is pretty clear, get more capacity. The best way to do this quickly is to merge. The GPRS guys probably can't wait for the spectrum cap to be lifted.
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