Lincoln Telecom and AT&T offer TDMA digital service in Omaha

SAN DIEGO -- (CTIA Winter Meeting & Exposition, March 2-4, 1994) -- AT&T announced today that it has signed a contract with Lincoln Telecommunications Company of Lincoln, Nebraska, to bring digital cellular telephone service to customers in the Omaha area.

This marks the first time cellular digital service will be available in Nebraska.

The contract, valued at more than $12 million in the first year, calls for AT&T Network Systems to provide Lincoln Telecom- munications' First Cellular Omaha operations with its AUTOPLEX(R) 1000 Series II and IIe cell sites. The new system will be in- troduced in Omaha in the second quarter of 1994. The expanded service will enable callers to use either analog or digital cel- lular phones.

"Digital technology will offer our subscribers higher voice quality, more reliable service and access to more advanced calling features," says Jim Strand, president, Diversified Opera- tions of Lincoln Telecommunications.

"The flexibility of AT&T's digital platform will allow us to migrate our system from TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) to CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) in the future when that technology becomes available."

TDMA is a digital technology that splits call transmissions into time segments so that several calls can be carried over the same cellular channel, increasing the capacity of today's analog system.

CDMA systems assign a special electronic code to each call signal, allowing more calls to occupy the same space and be spread over an entire frequency band. As a result, the call- handling capacity is greatly increased, compared with conven- tional analog cellular systems.

"AT&T's AUTOPLEX system provides a powerful platform that will allow Lincoln Telecommunications the flexibility to choose whichever technology they feel meets the needs of their customers--now, and into the future," says Jim Brewington, presi- dent, AT&T Network Wireless Systems.

AT&T Network Systems is a worldwide manufacturer and mar- keter of network telecommunications products, and offers com- munications service providers virtually everything they need to build and operate their landline and wireless networks. AUTOPLEX equipment is manufactured at the company's facility in Columbus, Ohio.

Lincoln Telecommunications is a full-service communications company headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska. Through its sub- sidiaries, it provides local and long distance telephone service, sells and maintains communications systems and provides cellular service in the Lincoln and Omaha markets.