Forecast sunny at CDMA show
By Dan Meyer
HONG KONG—Not even torrential rains around portions of Hong Kong could dampen the
spirits of CDMA supporters at the 3G World Congress. Even with the lack of sunshine
outside, to go along with the lack of CDMA coverage for roaming, most attendees seemed
bright on the prospects of next-generation services based on CDMA technology.
While most of the panelists during the conference sessions had vested interests in CDMA
technology, including operators and vendors, a surprising number were from non-CDMA
operations, including Japan’s NTT DoCoMo., AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and the GSM
Association.
William Daley, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, opened
the conference with a pro-competition speech, which echoed CDMA’s position as it tried to
enter the marketplace in the early ’90s.
“The one standard we can all agree on,” Daley said, “is the standard of competition.”
Daley also was part of a CDMA Development Group press conference touting China
Unicom’s recent decision to deploy a CDMA network covering more than 13 million
customers in China. Joining Daley were CDG Executive Director Perry LaForge, Larry
Brittain, vice president of sales for Ericsson, Scott Erickson, senior VP of mobile segment
for Lucent Technologies Inc., Ken Pecot, VP of Asia Pacific business operations for Nortel
Networks, Simon Leung, corporate VP and general manager for Motorola Inc., Lirong Shi,
senior VP for ZTE and Changmoon Han from SK Telecom.
The operator’s enthusiasm in finally getting a CDMA foothold in China was summed up by
Erickson, who noted, “It’s been a long time coming, but now we can say we are fully
supporting CDMA networks in China.” Erickson may have been a little extra excited since
Lucent was said to have won the largest share of the infrastructure deal with China
Unicom.
The news also caught the fancy of the Chinese press, who were out in force at the
conference asking plenty of questions surrounding the technology.
While CDMA’s presence in China will still lag behind GSM, China Unicom is hoping to add
more subscribers in the initial rollout of the network than Sprint PCS has added to its
network in the United States since its inception.
Not to be overshadowed by foreign markets, the United States was well represented during
many sessions by operators giving their opinions of network evolution paths for both CDMA
and GSM protocols. The most telling was from AT&T Wireless Senior VP Jim Grams, who
said next-generation operators need to focus on services that would be valued by their
customers and not oversell the ability of the networks.
“This strategy does appear to be difficult to adhere to if you have competitors who are
bringing faster data rates to market sooner, like CDMA 1x technology,” Grams said.
Grams also continued AT&T’s support of EDGE technology, noting that while not much
was happening with the development of the advanced TDMA service, carriers looking to
deploy EDGE need to take a leadership position. And, while not admitting to any
technology mistakes AT&T may have made along its path to 3G services, Grams admitted
the carrier was not prepared for how rapidly CDMA 1x has hit the market.
“We got a little complacent,” Grams said. “We thought CDMA technology would take
longer than it had. You usually can add a few years to vendor plans for technology, but,
you have to give credit to the 1x vendors for getting their products out on time.”
CDMA’s potential 3G advantages also were underlined by Nextel Communications Inc.’s
VP of 3G Implementation, Tamara Casey, who, while not officially sending Nextel down the
CDMA path for 3G, continued the carrier’s support for CDMA on its network by laying out
reasons to implement the technology.
“The real appeal of CDMA is not in its data applications, but in its voice capacity,” Casey
said. “We feel we offer an extremely competitive packet data network already.” Nextel
currently offers a packet-data wireless data service at speeds of around 20 Mbps, with
pending compression technology bumping that to around 50 Mbps.
But, before CDMA could proclaim victory with Nextel, Casey noted if the carrier had more
spectrum to spare for 3G services, it would consider using wideband CDMA. Nextel
currently has an average of 20 megahertz of spectrum in most of its markets, and would
need additional capacity to be comfortable giving up the initial 5 megahertz needed to start
W-CDMA.
“If there was a breakthrough in the spectrum situation in the U.S., we would seriously
consider W-CDMA.”
Future migration paths for TDMA operators also was brought up repeatedly during the
conference, with many of the vendors showcasing CDMA 1x paths TDMA operators should
look at before making the decision on 3G services.
“There are significant reasons for TDMA operators to move to CDMA,” said Dave
Murashige, VP of wireless marketing for Nortel Networks. “TDMA 850’s natural progression
should be to CDMA.”
The CDMA path for TDMA operators was also the topic of a white paper introduced during
the conference from The Shosteck Group spelling out compelling reasons for the switch.
“Overall, we indicate the possible challenges that TDMA/IS-136 operators may face in
deploying GSM and the possible advantages that cdmaOne may offer,” the white paper
concluded. “Based on these possible advantages, we suggest that TDMA operators may
find it worthwhile to consider cdma2000/1x as its migration path.”
The CDG also singled out companies supporting CDMA with an awards ceremony at the
Grand Hyatt Hotel overlooking the narrow causeway separating Hong Kong island from
mainland China. U.S. operator Sprint PCS walked away with a pair of trophies for service
innovation on the carrier’s use of 3G CDMA technologies to introduce new services into the
marketplace and the industry leadership award presented to Oliver Valente for overseeing
Sprint PCS’ Wireless Web offering and migration to 3G.
Korean operator SK Telecom walked away with the international leadership award for its
deployment of the world’s first CDMA 1x network last year. Kyocera Wireless Corp. picked
up the subscriber technology innovation award for the design and functionality of its QCP
6035 Smartphone. Lucent was tapped for the infrastructure technology innovation award for
its support of 1x EV-DO, while Qualcomm Inc. was presented with the innovative solution
award for its BREW application, designed to open CDMA networks to more applications. |
