Cingular completes L.A. upgrade

AT&T; Inc.’s wireless unit, Cingular Wireless, said Wednesday that it had completed its two-year, $1.3-billion investment to expand and enhance service in Greater Los Angeles.

The wireless unit, being renamed AT&T;, built 257 new cell sites in the area last year -- 560 over two years -- and enhanced network capacity. Cingular said much of the beefed-up coverage was in metropolitan Los Angeles, the area around Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza and parts of the Inland Empire from Temecula to Hesperia. It also improved coverage along coastal highways near Pismo Beach.

The local investment was part of $13.5 billion the unit spent nationwide over the last two years to expand and enhance service.

Separately, AT&T; said it had won a five-year contract worth almost $1 billion from General Motors Corp. to provide communication services and help integrate the automaker’s networks worldwide.

The contract is one of the biggest in AT&T;’s history. John Hodulik, an analyst at UBS, called the contract a “significant win” for AT&T.;

The telecommunications carrier, which has 200 employees assigned to the GM order, plans to use the contract to help court business clients.

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Reuters and Bloomberg News were used in compiling this report.