No, these are NOT the same arguments that were made in 1994. In 1994, they argued that the technology flat would not work. Nobody argued that it would take time to roll out.
My point and contention all along has been that WCDMA is a new technology. Period. We started the CDMA development in 1989. We had commercial grade chips in 1991 in which we could have fielded a mobile phone with and basestation technollgy which IF AT&T had not pulled the plug and gone home to patch up its failing 5ESS switch troubles that were blacking out Manhattan, we would have had commercial BTS along with a switch. By 1994, we had built a BTS with LU, hooked it up to a 5ESS swtich, rolled out 20% of Korea, and made the first generation mobile handset. By the end of 1994, we had the QCP-800 and both LU and MOT going on a BTS that was in large scale trials. IT TOOK 5 1/2 YEARS TO ROLL IT OUT WHERE IT WAS EVEN RUNNING IN THE FIRST LARGE SCALE SYSTEM.
At THAT point the ERICY guys were saying it would not work.
Now my point on WCDMA is that if they intend to roll out the technology, they had better get on with it ASAP. It is not that it will not work, there are facets of it which are new and diffacult to implement. Not impossible, but harder than CDMA2000. So until they field a few large systems, they cannot figure out all the problems with soft handoff, power control, large systems problems, etc. This takes time. It takes like 3-4 years. Given this, if they deploy chips today, it takes a min of 18 months to build a handset, even if you know what your doing and the testing is mature. Add another year to get the testing right so that yeilds are good. It takes another 18 months to work out alot of handset related standards issues. 150k users by 2004 is actually agressive for what I see implemented today.
One more comment on WCDMA rollout versus CDMA rollout. In the starting phases of IS-95, there was only one company and they basically developed the whole thing wihtout much diversion (Qualcomm). MOT and LU had alot to say about it, but not alot of changes. The chipsets for the basetations were all from a single vendor (Q) (NO questions asked there..) and the handsets were all done by Qualcomm for the first year, so no incompatibility to deal with until mid 1995. This made the actual rollout and testing much easier as it was basically developed and done by Q in parallel with the rollout.
My main point is and will be that until they show up with working chipsets and working handsets, they still have at least 3 years to get a system running. If they want to publish PR that says they have a system, this may be true for 100 or more users, but not for a large scale money making operation which can be depended on day in and day out. NO CARRIER in their right mind would commit to a system like that until it is proven. If they are not hedging their bets on something else in the meantime, then they loose out with the risk that the system may have some major bugs to work out and take longer than anticipated.
If carriers like Korea and Japan want to spend billions on licsnse fees and then wait for 5 or more years to make use of that money and start getting a return, then I cannot figure out how they will survive. At least GSTRF has a business plan which allowed them to start selling air time to customers and make a profit. Imagine the burn rate if you had to carry $5B on interest for 5 years while the NOK guys say "Trust me, I screwed up IS-95 for 5 years, but I can make this work. Trust me, spend another $250M on interest this year so that I can keep working on it."
TODAY, WCDMA IS UNPROVEN VAPORWARE. NOT SO SURE ABOUT 5 YEARS FROM NOW. |
