Mainland sets pace for
standards of equipment
BIEN PEREZ
The adoption of equipment standards for Code Division
Multiple Access (CDMA) services in the mainland
could serve as the blueprint for hardware vendors to
open other large markets, such as the United States, to
this advanced cellular technology.
This view was offered by various officials who attended
last week's fifth CDMA World Congress, held in Hong
Kong.
"I believe the industry's efforts in China will have a very
significant, historical implication on how CDMA will
move forward in other markets worldwide," said
Philippe Vallee, executive vice-president at Gemplus
Technologies Asia.
He said this was most apparent in China Unicom's
requirement to have removable smart-card slots on the
CDMA handsets to be used in its pilot programme on
the mainland.
Unlike services based on the popular Global System for
Mobile (GSM) cellular standard, present CDMA
services have not exploited the value-added services
brought by smart cards - including roaming and tighter
voice and transmission security.
With close to 60 million users worldwide, more than half
of whom in the Asia-Pacific, CDMA is being positioned
by its proponents as the more robust platform for
wireless Internet services.
GSM handsets provide various value-added services
through the wide use of subscriber identity module (Sim)
smart cards, which are chips with memory and limited
application inserted inside a slot on the GSM phone.
"Pre-paid Sim cards have also allowed GSM operators
to offer levels of service that are not available to CDMA
operators today," Mr Vallee said.
To meet China Unicom's smart-card requirement,
CDMA industry proponents have come up with the
Removable User Identity Module CDMA standard,
which emulates the Sim standard under GSM.
The Telecommunications Industry Association, which
acts as a standards-approving body, gave that CDMA
platform the green light.
Perry LaForge is executive director of the CDMA
Development Group, a non-profit trade association
formed to foster the worldwide use of CDMA
technology.
Mr LaForge said: "Now that these CDMA Sims have
been approved, we are optimistic that global
manufacturers will make these handsets available this
year."
CDMA, developed by Qualcomm in the US, has been
touted as offering more robust voice and data capacity
for wireless services, including e-commerce, compared
with the European-developed GSM.
But, according to Bertrand Bidaud, Gartner Group's
research director for Asia-Pacific telecommunications
and electronic business, the robustness provided by
CDMA has not halted the wider demand, so far, for
GSM services and GSM handsets in the Asia-Pacific.
Mr Bidaud said: "The CDMA network might be better,
but users care more for the handsets, and there is more
choice of GSM handsets."
He said South Korea was expected to continue
spearheading the CDMA roll-out in the Asia-Pacific,
followed by Japan.
Although China Unicom has the size to put the mainland
prominently in the CDMA map, the country still has
more GSM users, including more than 46 million served
by rival China Mobile, the world's largest provider of
cellular services.
Mr Bidaud said it would "take some time" before the
third generation (3G) of wireless voice and data services
became widely available on the mainland.
That is based on the huge infrastructure and investment
needed to upgrade the present CDMA generation to the
proposed 3G CDMA and from the existing GSM
Wideband CDMA systems.
"Licensing plays a key role to stimulate the move to
3G," Mr Bidaud said.
The answer would probably differ from country to
country.
If licensing conditions were loose, and with no new
entrant for 3G, or limited new competition, the risk of
their being a delay was real.
In Asia, countries that auctioned 3G licences were likely
to move faster to 3G, he said.
Anil Kripalani, senior vice-president at Qualcomm, said
the company welcomed the worldwide resources that
were being devoted to the roll-out of 3G CDMA
technology.
"Qualcomm owns a substantial portfolio of CDMA
patents, including many essential patents that are
necessary for the deployment of any proposed 3G
CDMA system," Mr Kripalani said.
He said Qualcomm had granted royalty-bearing licences
to more than 75 manufacturers for CDMA.
Qualcomm expected the upcoming China Unicom trial
on 3G CDMA to kick off the commercial adoption of
the technology by the end of this year.
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