AT&T puts WiMax to test

WASHINGTON - AT&T Corp. has recently announced that it would test a much-hyped high-speed wireless technology later this year to see if it can be used to replace traditional data lines to businesses.

If the technology, known as WiMax, lives up to expectations, AT&T Chief Technical Officer Hossein Eslambolchi said it could be used as early as 2006 to replace expensive data lines that AT&T now leases from local telephone companies to connect to its network.

Eslambolchi said AT&T will start the first test of a prototype version of WiMax in May in Middletown, New Jersey, with a commercial trial later this year.

AT&T, which has agreed to be bought by SBC Communications Inc. for $16 billion, is the largest seller of voice and data services to businesses. Of about 270,000 business buildings in the United States, Eslambolchi said AT&T had its own network running to about 7,000.

For the remainder, it must lease lines from local telephone companies or other network companies, which costs AT&T several billion dollars a year.

With WiMax, AT&T would "not only be able to lower your cost structure, but most importantly be able to generate new services and new capabilities," Eslambolchi told Reuters.

WiMax, a technology standard backed by Intel Corp. and several other corporations, has been billed as a possible competitor for high-speed wired data services, promising faster connections over much longer distances than previous wireless technologies.

Eslambolchi said the tests will use two different varieties of WiMax, one that requires a receiver that has a line of sight to an antenna and another that does not.

With both, Eslambolchi said AT&T will target data speeds of up to six megabits per second for each user, over a distance of two to five miles.

Several other telephone companies, including Qwest Communications International Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have experimented with WiMax technology.