Dave, Chaz - First, I am not very knowledgable about the state of spectrum allocations for 3g in countries other than the US (in which it isn't happening, at least not yet). But as for the move to 3g by NA-TDMA and GSM operators in the US - Certainly it will be harder for them to flip over to W-CDMA than it will for the CDMAOne operators to flip over to CDMA-2000. The TDMA operators need 5MHz of spectrum and their current user's phones will not work at all in the new mode. Thus, if they are near capacity, they will not be able to easily migrate over since 5MHz is a lot of spectrum to remove from a system at capacity. In contrast, CDMAOne operators can just upgrade one 1.25Mhz chunk, and if needs be continue to operate with CDMAOne phones.
But, migration is still possible for the TDMA operators. PCS spectrum was given out in chunks which are multiples of 5MHz, and although they may need to give out new handsets (As Sprint is doing in DC), it is technically possible to switch over.
As for EDGE and GPRS as an intermediate solution, I really need to do some more research.
Clark
PS Mika - Why is the US the bad guys for not allocating the same spectrum as Europe? Why not Europe being the bad guys for not allocating spectrum the same way as the US? I agree that it is annoying that we can't seem to agree, but whose fault is it? (This is truly an open ended question, since the whole frequency allocation issue is one that I know little about.) |
