Tero,
<< Voicestream using GSM-1900 instead of GSM-1800 >>
You are confusing me, and perhaps I am missing something, in which case you can enlighten me. Then again perhaps you explain my confusion when you say "Some of these choices were forced on the operators".
How could Voicestream possibly use GSM-1800 in the spectrum that was set aside for PCS in the Americas?
And oh, by the way and correct me if I am wrong, but at the time they bid into the 1900 MHz spectrum there was no such thing as "GSM-1800" it was then called DCS-1800 and it included the CPHS functionality set and some OTA using SMS capability that did not get incorporated into GSM specifications until phase 2+ was published several years later.
In actuality at the time GSM-1900 (then known as PCS-1900) launched commercial in the US in November 1995, PCS-1900 was closer to DCS-1800 then it was to GSM-900 (although it was fully compatible with same, frequency aside) since it incorporated the complete CPHS feature set and an enhanced version of OTA provisioning using ESMS.
The US was also fortunate to be able to launch "clean" with all the then recently published GSM Phase 2 features (as well as the DCN features) and had to contend with none of the Phase 1 baggage that European carriers struggled with for several years thereafter. In addition ESMS OTA provisioning allowed the US to borrow the "shrink wrapped" marketing techniques of one2one and Orange which greatly simplified distribution and eliminated time and effort at point of sale with the contract rigmarole and activation hassles associated with analog here.
The merits of the European v. Americas allowance or disallowance of technology choice have been endlessly debated here. I wish to make one comment, and one comment only on that subject. I think that if the regulatory agencies in the Americas had dictated a single technology choice in the European style when licensing new spectrum for 2nd generation digital mobile wireless telephony, it would be HIGHLY unlikely GSM would have ANY presence in the Americas today. The technology would have been either TDMA or CDMA (and certainly not EMSR).
Our decision opened the door to GSM.
Remember also, that in one sense, we had a significant advantage over Europe when we initiated planning for 2G wireless in that we only had one legacy analog technology to contend with (and all in the same spectrum throughout the Americas) and not the hodge podge alphabet soup mess that Europe had to deal with. Also, in the US, we had a great infrastructure based on copper wire, which still serves us well.
We applied a different solution based on a different problem set.
- Eric - |
