AirTouch Cellular Completes Commercial Roll Out of CDMA Powerband Service across Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 1996--AirTouch Cellular (AirTouch Communications NYSE:ATI) today announced it turned up its entire Los Angeles CDMA digital cellular network.

AirTouch Cellular introduced its Powerband(SM) digital service in Los Angeles on May 15th, initially covering a 3,500 square mile area north of Los Angeles. At that time, the company said it planned to cover 80% of its planned Powerband serving area by year end and the remaining 20% by second quarter 1997.

"We completed the final commercialization a few months early because customer reaction has been so positive and the Motorola software problems which occurred early this year are behind us," said Lee Cox, vice chairman of AirTouch Communications and CEO of AirTouch Cellular. "Having ubiquitous digital coverage puts us on course to move 10 to 15 percent of our peak minutes off our analog network by mid 1997," Cox added explaining that AirTouch continues its economics-driven migration strategy aimed at retaining high use customers who place a high value on the clearer calls and the up to five hours of talk time that Powerband service offers.

AirTouch continues to convert a steady stream of customers to digital, with about a third choosing the short messaging feature when they sign up for service.

In addition to national analog roaming, today AirTouch Powerband customers can roam on the 360 Communications CDMA network in Las Vegas. Beginning January all AirTouch Powerband customers in Southern California can roam on AirTouch CDMA digital cellular networks in Los Angeles and San Diego. Between AirTouch and 360 Communications, the entire Southern California major trading area (including Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego) has CDMA coverage in more than 95% of the places where people use their analog phones today.

Cox also said that AirTouch has begun making Powerband more widely available to customers throughout Los Angeles who use more than three hours of airtime per month. "Customers place so much value on having a dual-mode phone that supports nationwide roaming that they willingly pay a little more for the phone," Cox added. "We plan to charge as little as $200 which compares favorably to single-mode PCS handsets."

AirTouch Communications is a global wireless communications company, with interests in cellular, paging and personal communications services in the United States and 11 other nations: Belgium, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, Spain and Sweden as well as an interest in the Globalstar satellite system. The company, based in San Francisco, serves more than 7.2 million proportionate cellular and paging customers worldwide.

CONTACT: AirTouch Communications

Amy Damianakes, 510/210-3645