AT&T, BT Unveil First Global Wireless Products

The wireless divisions of AT&T and British Telecom (BT) this morning took the wraps off their first global wireless products.

The products are the result of Advance, an alliance AT&T and BT announced earlier this year. Advance is charged with responding to the increasingly global expectations of their customers.

The two products - WorldConnect and WorldView - are billed as the first offerings in a series of global products and services provided by the alliance.

WorldConnect will offer wireless coverage on the same phone number, with many of the customer's features following them to more than 100 countries worldwide and 7,000 cities in the US, Canada and Mexico, using a combination of wireless and wireless services.

WorldView, meanwhile, is said to provide multinational corporations the ability to better manage their international wireless service in countries around the world.

In parallel with the two new products, BT Wireless also announced the launch of a secure real time and synchronized corporate e-mail service for its business customers using the AT&T PocketNet brand.

BT's PocketNet service is billed as taking the desktop applications of Microsoft Outlook, and making them available on a wireless phone, personal organizer or other wireless device.

As with the US PocketNet service, BT is rolling its version out through its international ventures operation.

The initial list of companies that plan to support Advance products includes AT&T Wireless (US), AirTel (India), BT Cellnet (UK), Concert, Esat Digifone (Ireland), Far EasTone (Taiwan), Maxis (Malaysia), Rogers AT&T Wireless (Canada), SmarTone (Hong Kong), Telenor (Norway) and Telfort (Netherlands).

The alliance is said to marry AT&T Wireless' TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) with BT Wireless' GSM (Global Standard for Mobile Communications), allowing uses access to third-generation (3G) wireless facilities now.

AT&T's Web site is at http://www.att.com.

BT's Web site is at http://www.bt.com.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.