Cingular and VoiceStream get into bed together

In what is a potential boost for the GSM mobile standard born in Europe, two of the main US mobile operators have agreed to start sharing network resources.

Cingular, the joint venture between BellSouth and SBC Communications of the western states, will share network capacity in New York City, California and Nevada with VoiceStream, now owned by Deutsche Telekom.

One of the reasons for Telekom's attraction to VoiceStream last year was that it was the only major US operator to embrace GSM, also used by other DT networks. Now if Cingular embraces GSM it could mark the beginning of a swing away from other standards in North America, such as CDMA.

Sharing of network resources - in particular base stations - has been touted in Europe as a way to save expenditure on the role out of third-generation UMTS networks. In the US, the problem has been more of spectrum capacity for existing mobile standards.

Other US operators have toyed with GSM and the upcoming 3G W-CDMA standard, which will be used in Europe and Asia. These include Verizon Wireless, part owned by the UK's Vodafone, and Nextel, which uses a proprietary technology from Motorola.