Subj: 3G: Generally gloomy goings-on?
Date: 4/20/01 12:02:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: DREW528
To: rsantalesa@smartedge.com
I just got around to reading your article on Smart Business Magazine's web site. Frankly, I believe you have misinterpreted several things. I will address only one: the announced upgrades of Verizon's and Sprint's wireless networks.
The announced 1X upgrades help these companies in several important ways.
1) These upgrades are taking place in existing spectrum, so spectrum auction cost issues are a non-issue. For practical purposes, the installation technician needs only to swap out the existing CDMAone circuit boards in every base station. When they are ready to upgrade to true 3G in another year or two, they will do the same thing again. In existing spectrum. Using existing towers.
2) The 1X upgrades are backwards and forwards compatible. This means that existing CDMA phones will continue to work (certain Nokia models excepted -- see below) on the upgraded networks and that the new 1X capable phones and other devices will work where the network has not yet been upgraded.
3) Where 1X phones are used on 1X networks, the system's voice capacity is doubled. Therefore, these companies will not need to erect as many towers as their competitors. This justifies the investment by itself. This is also why Sprint has stated they have enough spectrum to last quite a while.
4) 1X will enable always-on 144 Kbps capability. (Existing CDMAone networks are technically capable of being always-on, too, although at somewhat slower speeds, but as far as I know no carrier has actually offered this.) Yes, in real life it probably will not be quite that fast, but it should be faster than Ricochet and far more accessible nationally because of the more pervasive network buildout of Sprint and Verizon. Qualcomm has already licensed this technology to many manufacturers and wireless modems should be readily available by the time the networks go live. What applications will be available is a different question entirely and beyond the scope of this e-mail, but you might want to check into Wireless Knowledge, a joint venture between Qualcomm and Microsoft to see what they are doing.
5. Qualcomm is already shipping the 1X chipsets to handset manufacturers. Every CDMA handset manufacturer except Nokia will be shipping 1X phones this year, so availability is not likely to be an issue. In fact, because of the backwards compatibility, I expect Verizon and Sprint to start slipping 1X phones into their offerings long before the 1X network upgrades have happened. Then, when 1X goes live, they will enjoy the improved network performance immediately.
Nokia is the one exception because they have chosen to design and manufacture their own CDMA chipsets rather than purchase them from Qualcomm. Unfortunately, they have found this to be more difficult than they had thought -- even with considerable technical assistance from Qualcomm. Nokia has had to admit that several models of their phones do not work on 1X networks. They misinterpreted the CDMA2000 technical standards. As of yet there is no fix.
By the way, this is all quite different from what will happen for carriers in Europe and for AT&T and Cingular in the USA, all of whom will be at a significant cost disadvantage because they will have to build completely new networks in new spectrum for 3G. GSM with GPRS has performance roughly equal to existing CDMAone networks and is not 3G, except perhaps in some marketing manager's dreams. UMTS/WCDMA is. They are neither backwards nor forwards compatible.
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"I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem." Ashley Brilliant
Andrew Williams
drew528@aol.com |
