British Telecommunications Plc’s majority-owned Cellnet Mobile Communications Ltd may provide a service to compete with Personal Communications Network, to try to tap the mass consumer market. With Vodafone Group Plc committed to producing its Micro Cellular Network run off the back of its GSM, Groupe Speciale Mobile, digital cellular service, Cellnet maintains that it is still considering its options, and has at least two potential plans up its sleeve. One of these would be to supplement GSM base stations with smaller ones (as is to happen with Vodafone’s Micro Cellular service), enabling the small, but consequently not very powerful, Class 5 handsets to be used to provide a localised service. A Cellnet spokesman said, however, that another option was for the company to use its existing analogue cellular network for the same purpose once GSM is off the ground and attracting business customers. He pointed out that, in some metropolitan areas – London being the most obvious example, there is a very high density of base stations already in place: within the six-mile London area there are 16 cells, with over 100 channels on each cell, which would give enough coverage for such a service. The company is refusing to say which is the preferred plan. Cellnet is in a stronger position than rival Vodafone to play its cards close to its chest since it is not quoted on the Stock Exchange, and therefore does not have to keep the City happy. Cellnet has been more forthcoming about its plans for Groupe Speciale Mobile, however, although it has adopted the same hesitant tones as Vodafone did a few weeks ago. Announcing that it expects to have digital cellular ready for marketing in 1994, it also drew attention to the expected high initial cost of handsets, and said that its market research had indicated that the service would not be attractive to customers until it offered the same level of national coverage and quality of service as the existing analogue system.
