Maurice,
Re: QUENTIN HARDY EXPOSED - Qualcomm Capacity Claims - Part One
<< Gus regurgitates this hoary old chestnut which derives from arithmetic Quentin must have done based on a theoretical discussion in 1989 about the possible capacity of a CDMA system which was still only in the 'on paper' stage. Field trials were only run in 1991. >>
Gus did great. I asked him if he had time, to "start at the commercial launch date of CDMA in September 1995, and elucidate on your point of Qualcomm "over-promising" and "under-delivering", and back it with some factual references?"
At least he did not dig up Bill Frezza from the archives.
He cited a reference one whole year (September 1996) later than I asked and I guess the article can be called "factual", because there are indeed some good and interesting "facts" in it that I can attest to because I was selling into the US GSM market from late 1994 forward (before the auctions and technology decisions), and talking daily to GSM, CDMA, or TDMA carriers at the time the article was written.
But ...
I think you are ABSOLUTELY correct.
Let me tell you why I say that.
I just went to the archives and exhumed two chestnuts. One I picked up at the Qualcomm booth in New Orleans, FL at the CTIA show in New Orleans, LA in February 1995, and the other at the first PCS show in the US (PCS95) that was held in Orlando, FL, in September of 1995. They are as follows:
* "Economics of PCS: A Tale of Two Networks" (Feb 1995)
* "CDMA vs. GSM: a Comparison of the Seven C's of Wireless Communications: (Sep 95)
Each spiral bound 8½" x 11" book is about 100 pages with appendixes.
Each book compares coverage capacity of a GSM Net (DCN-1900 or DCN-1800) v. a CDMA net with a variety of different scenarios.
Some quotes:
* On Coverage: "CDMA requires four times less cells to cover the same area as DCS"
* On Capacity: "CDMA technology uses much more efficiently than analog or TDMA, with more than 10 times the capacity of analog, and five to seven times the capacity of DCS-1900"
There are many examples, charts, and graphs, and coverage and capacity vary of course depending on population density, terrain, and many other factors, but these are the summary points.
In 1995, Qualcomm was NOT claiming a 13 to 1 advantage in capacity over GSM.
Now let me also share another quote from Quentin's article on Qualcomm and comment on it:
"CDMA delays have helped slow deployment of any digital-mobile-phone system in the U.S., leaving executives who need a single technological fix fuming. Bert Roberts, chairman of MCI Communications Corp. calls the conflict "a travesty." He and others say the tardiness of CDMA has set back, perhaps irrevocably, the formulation of a digital-wireless standard for the U.S. That means a caller on the West Coast, for example, could find his CDMA wonder-phone useless in a conflicting East Coast system."
As you probably know, MCI was a wireless reseller, in competition with AT&T (or McGaw Cellular) who created the IS-136 TDMA standard (along with Bell South & SBC). MCI lobbied heavily for a single wireless standard along the lines of Europe and specifically for the GSM standard. They had a wireless unit in DC, Texas, and Colorado, and they planned to bid in the 1995 auction A&B blocks for 1900 MHz spectrum, and build out a national GSM network.
They never participated in the auctions, and it was suggested this was because they figured that they could pick up spectrum at a later date on the cheap when DE's bidding in C Block, could not attract backing to build out, or defaulted on payments to the FCC.
So let me put it this way, I can see why Bert Roberts might call the "conflict a travesty".
As you might also remember, in his letter to the WSJ editor, about Hardy's article, Ira Brodsky noted:
"There are a number of other one-sided comments. MCI Communications Chairman Bert Roberts is quoted making scathing remarks about CDMA; the article fails to mention his firm just entered an agreement to purchase 10 billion minutes of CDMA airtime from Qualcomm spinoff NextWave Telecom."
Now so we can set the record straight here is what CDG is currently saying about capacity.
In a May "UpsideToday" article Jim Takach, Director of Advanced Programs for CDG was quoted as saying "The industry has demonstrated that the capacity of a CDMA network was 10 times greater than for analog cellular networks, and three times greater than for GSM networks."
In the same article, Anil Kripalani, Qualcomm's SVP for Technology Planning was quoted as saying that "CDMA can support about 10 times as many users as analog networks, and three to five times as many as GSM."
The article goes on to state that "while most systems can be tweaked to improve their performance, CDMA makes far more efficient use of radio spectrum than the other available technologies".
I believe this statement to be accurate and I'll take the statements of Takach and the low side of Kripalani's, which jives Gus's statement about Verizon or Vodafones to be reasonably accurate.
For the moment I think we can say that CDMA makes far more efficient use of radio spectrum than the other available technologies" by a factor of at least 3X. We can come back and reevaluate this a year from now when 1xMC (which doubles voice capacity) and GPRS are commercially installed, and see if 5X is applicable or exaggerated.
Enough for now. Part Two of "CDMA's Capacity Advantage" to follow (as Tero would say).
Have a Great Nokia Day.
- Eric - |
