re: Dr. Jacobs at CTIA
>> EDGE On The Brink, Claims Qualcomm Chief
Tony Dennis
Total Telecom
Las Vegas
21 March 2001
Qualcomm's controversial chairman and CEO Dr Irwin Jacobs has predicted the demise of EDGE (Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution), a 2.5G data standard. "I don't think EDGE will see the light of day," Jacobs told Total Telecom at the CTIA Wireless 2001 show in Las Vegas.
Backing up his dismissal of EDGE, Jacobs pointed to U.S. network operator, AT&T Wireless, which, he claimed, "will ultimately end up with CDMA."
Jacobs said EDGE suffers from restricted coverage issues as well as requiring extra infrastructure equipment. "I don't see there being an economic opportunity for EDGE," he added.
Jacobs stated that when announcements at the Telecom '99 trade show (October 1999) suggested that GPRS would be delayed by 12 months, most people didn't believe it. But 18 months later GPRS is still in its infancy, "and that was a much easier step [than EDGE]."
Referring to comments he made at the 3GSM exhibition at Cannes in February, Jacobs said, "I still expect to see DoCoMo to launch a restricted [W-CDMA] service in May, but it won't be compliant with the [19]99 specifications."
He also foresees those European operators that have paid billions of dollars for 3G spectrum struggling to fully utilize it, and that this will provide an opportunity for Qualcomm's 1xEV technology in Europe. "If there's a significant wait for [infrastructure] equipment, then I see an opportunity for 1x and 1xEV. That is a possibility. I hope that their [operators] first choice [W-CDMA] does work out," he added.
However, he views technologies such as 1xEV as a useful contingency plan for those working towards W-CDMA. Jacobs says that Qualcomm is taking the task of selling 1xEV to Europe very seriously indeed. "There's an interesting business case here," Jacobs claimed.
The 3G world according to Irwin Jacobs will definitely be multi-modal. He believes Qualcomm will soon have the chip technology to enable handset vendors to support all flavors of 3G technology. "It's fast becoming inexpensive to do that in [silicon]," he suggested. "It's all in the process of happening now."
Jacobs, however, regards discussion of fourth generation (4G) technology as very premature, while at the other end of the market he maintains that "there are around 1 billion users of second generation technology who aren't going to go away for a while."
Qualcomm is using the CTIA show to vigorously promote its wireless application development platform, Brew (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless). This sits above the air interface and in theory allows developers to produce wireless applications that run over a wide range of handsets. The company says that H-P has even demonstrated that it is feasible to add a Java virtual machine on top of Brew.
As an example of Brew's practical usage, Qualcomm pointed to NTT DoCoMo, which had to recall a large batch of i-Mode phones when a bug was discovered. "That wouldn't have happened if they had been using Brew," claimed Jacobs. "With Brew they could have downloaded the bug fix over the air." <<
- Eric - |
