AT&T's recent expenditure of $3.3 billion for wireless systems in San Francisco, San Diego, and Houston, brings its customer base to more than 3.3 million in a score of cities. This growth has prompted several readers to inquire about the feasibility of using AT&T wireless for connecting bookmobiles to their automated library systems and the Internet. Unfortunately, AT&T's cellular digital packet data technology is limited to 14.4 Kbps— enough for charge and discharge of library materials but not enough to download HTML code.
Its major competitors don't do any better. Sprint PCS is limited to 2.4 Kbps and BellSouth's Mobility, when it becomes available, will be at 14.4 Kbps. The strategy of the companies at this time is to build their customer bases and to invest in service upgrades later.
AT&T is working on a new offering called “Edge” that will offer a top speed of 384 Kbps. It may be available as early as 2002.
Library Systems Newsletter welccomes questions from readers Please email them to the contributing editor at dickboss@erold.com if the topic is appropriate for LSN readers, the contributing editor will draft an article for the next issue of LSN and will e-mail a copy to the person who asked the question.
