Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile, GTE Mobilnet to provide interregional 'visiting' for CDPD users

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Today, Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile and GTE Mobilnet announced an agreement to allow customers to "visit" between those two companies' Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) networks, dramatically expanding the CDPD network coverage area for both carriers.

Initially, the visiting arrangements will be available to customers in Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile's Connecticut system and customers in all of GTE Mobilnet's markets. To date, the two carriers have established pre-commercial connectivity, with commercial grade service expected to be in place in Connecticut by November 30, 1995. Because the agreement covers all of both companies' markets, it enables the companies to implement the offering in additional markets throughout the remainder of 1995 and in 1996, subject to regulatory approval.

CDPD Network interoperability will allow users to have access to CDPD service while traveling in another cellular market. For example, a GTE Mobilnet customer from San Francisco can use CDPD service while visiting Hartford, Conn., a Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile market.

GTE Mobilnet and Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile will each set their own rates for service. To make billing as simple as possible for the customer, users will receive a single bill from their home service provider for home and visiting activity.

"This agreement is further evidence of the growth of a national seamless CDPD network, one where customers will be able to be as mobile as their business dictates," said Mike Franklin, BANM director-wireless data marketing. "Our customers will have access to this expanded coverage area and will pay the same rate whether at home or visiting." Jay Sheth, GTE Mobilnet director-wireless data said, "This is GTE Mobilnet's second successful intercarrier agreement, and the second for the industry. Earlier this year GTE Mobilnet and Ameritech announced interoperability among the GTE and Ameritech CDPD markets." 

Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile and GTE Mobilnet are both charter members of the CDPD Forum Inc., a trade association dedicated to promoting use of the CDPD standard. Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile, headquartered in Bedminster, N.J., is the largest wireless service provider on the East Coast and the second largest provider in the United States. The company offers a full range of wireless voice, data, and paging communications solutions to its three million customers in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and, through a separate subsidiary, in the Southwest. The company was formed in July 1995 through the combination of Bell Atlantic Mobile's and NYNEX Mobile's cellular operations. The company has more than 5,000 employees. GTE Mobilnet is a leading mobile cellular operator in the United States with the potential of serving some 72 million cellular and personal communications services customers. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of GTE Corporation (NYSE: GTE). GTE Corp. is the fourth-largest publicly owned telecommunications company in the world.

NYNEX is a global communications and media company that provides a full range of services in the northeastern United States and high-growth markets around the world, including the United Kingdom, Thailand, Gibraltar, Greece, Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The Corporation is a leader in the telecommunications, wireless communications, cable television, directory publishing and entertainment and information services.