The Book Of Genesis>
10/01/99 - The Book of Genesis
Oct. 01, 1999 (LTH - CMP via COMTEX) -- How complicated is standards development? Witness the troubled genesis of
third-generation (3G) mobile standards for systems that may begin operating over the next few years.
3G mobile systems are aimed at enabling a true convergence of wireless and the Internet, including features such as higher-speed
Internet access, multimedia access and global roaming. Work on system standards began more than a decade ago. That"s when
Japan, under pressure because of its own wireless capacity problems, took the first step in the 15-year 3G standardization process by
promoting 3G wireless standards within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
"The Ministry of Telecommunications in Japan decided the only way new spectrum could be allocated would be through a
third-generation system," says John Marinho, technology director in Lucent Technologies" Wireless Networks Group and chairman of
the Telecommunications Industry Association"s TR-45 engineering committee, which develops performance, compatibility,
interoperability and service standards for certain mobile and personal communications services (PCS).
With prodding from Japan, the ITU went to work on the specifications that later became known as the ITU"s International Mobile
Telecommunications 2000 (IMT-2000) initiative.
While the ITU was immersed in developing 3G standards, the second generation of wireless telephony-digital, rather than
first-generation analog-developed quickly in the competitive marketplace. Operators in the United States and Europe built their own
competing second-generation (2G) systems, including the switches, base stations, platform infrastructure and wireless devices to
support them. These extensive investments set the stage for three groups to battle it out for supremacy in the 3G war-those behind the
U.S. version of time-division multiple access (TDMA), competing flavors of code-division multiple access (CDMA) and Europe"s global
system for mobile communication (GSM).
Further complicating the picture was a separate, years-old battle between Qualcomm Inc. (San Diego) and L.M. Ericsson AB
(Stockholm) over intellectual property rights to wireless technologies that form the foundation of the 3G standards. That was settled in
March, but not without the personal intervention of ITU Secretary-General Yoshio Utsumi and increasing pressure from Europe and
Japan, which teamed up to lobby for a faster rollout of 3G than the United States wanted.
Utsumi was not alone in pressuring for cooperation on standards. The U.S. government reminded the European Commission this
summer that Europe had promised the World Trade Organization (WTO) it would respect technology-neutral 3G licensing. Europe had
initially indicated it wanted only wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) as its 3G standard and would unilaterally implement it. But U.S. Secretary
of Commerce William Daley and U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky issued a letter stating that the United States will
oppose any of the 15 European Union member states" licensing procedures that fail to include all forms of the 3G standards.
But that"s getting ahead of the story.
When the ITU solicited proposals for a 3G wireless system in early 1997, second-generation wireless operators discovered they already
met about 85 percent of the requirements. Among those remaining were the critical high-speed data rates needed for better Internet and
multimedia capabilities.
Some participants in the process may have gotten carried away in their zeal for high data rates at high rates of mobility. One
requirement calls for data rates of 144 kbit/s at 500 kilometers an hour-the speed of a bullet train in Japan. Another specifies data
traveling at 1,500 kilometers an hour-the speed of a jet aircraft.
Yes, standards-building is a consensus process, but what killer application will require these high speeds of 3G? asked some of the
participants. That question remains unanswered, especially when road warriors can download maps wirelessly at 28 kbit/s today.
On the other hand, the pedestrian data rate specifies a more reasonable wireless transmission at 384-kbit/s speeds-40 times today"s
GSM rate-at 3 kilometers an hour. And the indoor rate at 2 Mbit/s is already exceeded by wireless local-area networks (LANs) in the
U.S. market.
Meanwhile, a conflict over which flavor of CDMA to use with 3G is being addressed. The Operators Harmonization Group (OHG), which
represents most of the potential 3G service providers worldwide, last May reiterated its support of a common global specification for the
different CDMA-based systems vying for 3G supremacy. The OHG"s Harmonized Global 3G document provides a technical framework
to mold a single, integrated 3G CDMA specification out of the separate W-CDMA and cdma2000 proposals offered to the ITU. The
framework is supported by the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), made up of senior U.S. and European industry executives and
gave everyone something to take home. It included the direct-spread solution to satisfy the Third Generation Partnership Project
(3GPP); the multicarrier solution to satisfy 3GPP2 and ensure backward compatibility; and the encouragement of further harmonization
via a common time-division duplex mode.
There"s even more work going on in parallel with this. The Third Generation Partnership Projects (3GPP and 3GPP2) are working to
ensure that all CDMA modes of the IMT-2000 air interfaces are compatible with both the ANSI-41 and the GSM Multiple Applications
Part (MAP) core networks.
The OHG wants the CDMA communities to ensure that the ANSI-41 and GSM MAP networks talk to one another so that data records
and other information can be exchanged, further facilitating roaming.
The TDMA proponents under UWC-136 have united ANSI-41 for circuit-switched services and GSM for packet-switched services, and
are working to unify the two networks over time, says Paul Meche, former chairman of the Global TDMA Forum and director of new
systems technologies at Nokia Mobile Phones Inc. (Espoo, Finland).
The TDMA proponents also have defined interworking functions for basic call delivery services and are working to incorporate enhanced
functions such as Short Message Service (SMS) and calling line ID, he says.
The OHG also is recommending that 3GPP and 3GPP2 consider merging no later than December 2000 to focus on developing a unified
core 3G network, and to ensure that the radio transmission technologies and their associated protocol layers work together.
Even all this doesn"t close the book on 3G"s genesis. The harmonization of the radio transmission technologies still must be approved
by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and Japanese and
Chinese standards bodies.
And then there"s the licensing of spectrum for 3G. European Union members want to have a scheme for 3G operator licensing by Jan.
1, 2000, to prepare for service introductions starting in January 2002. Like standardization, licensing is a complex challenge-enough to
fill another book.
Sandra Guy is a freelance writer based in Chicago. She can be reached at sguy178525@aol.com. |
