US : Residents and visitors to the greater Providence area no longer need to rely on wired connections for broadband access to information, as Cingular transforms the heart of the Ocean State into a wireless speedway.

"We're giving customers the ability to securely access information and applications at broadband speeds in the office, on the road or at home. With our 3G service, almost any spot in northern Rhode Island is a hot spot," said Steve Krom, vice president and general manager for Cingular in New England.

Cingular's 3G coverage area in the state spans from Pawtucket to North Smithfield in the north and from Barrington, Warwick and East Coventry in the south. It also covers all of Routes 295, 10 and 146.

Specific towns of coverage include North Smithfield, Woonsocket, Cumberland, Smithfield, Lincoln, Central Falls, Pawtucket, Gloucester, Scituate, Johnston, North Providence, Providence, East Providence, Cranston, Warwick, Barrington, Coventry, and West Warwick.

Cingular 3G not only offers advanced wireless services, such as viewing video clips through CingularVideo, it also enhances existing services by making them run faster. Customers can now download a game or ringtone or access mobile email quicker than ever. Business users will also appreciate Cingular's LaptopConnect, which allows the company's customers to use their laptops to access the Internet or email, download large files and attachments, or run business applications at average data speeds between 400-700 bps (kilobits per second) on the downlink, with bursts to more than a megabit per second.

Cingular's 3G network is the first widely available service in the world to use HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology. HSDPA is the high-speed evolution of GSM/EDGE (Global System for Mobile Communication/Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution), which shares a common core network. GSM is the world's most popular wireless technology, which is used by more than one billion people in 210 countries.