Ben,
"The one standard we can all agree on, is the standard of competition."
Comment on your bolded emphasis:
<< AT&T’s support of EDGE ... carriers looking to deploy EDGE need to take a leadership position ... noting that while not much was happening with the development of the advanced TDMA service >>
This becomes important in the context of Cingular who is still clinging (at least in public announcements) to TDMA-EDGE.
My take on this statement is that AT&T is realistically taking a leadership position within GSMA, and GERAN in trying to sway Cingular away from EGPRS to GSM-EDGE, where quite a bit is happening (because orders have been placed and infra shipping).
Another interesting Gram's comment (practicing high diplomacy given the environ)"
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.
Other comments (mostly counterpoint) flowing out of the same conference that you quoted commentary from:
>> William Daley, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton
"The one standard we can all agree on," Daley (William Daley, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton said, "is the standard of competition."
<snip>
Nextel Communications (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. 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."
>> Neil Montefiore, chief executive at Singapore-based mobile operator M1, drew first blood when he revealed on Thursday that the company was scrapping its second-generation cdmaOne network in favour of the GSM-evolved Wideband-CDMA 3G platform. M1 had planned to drop its CDMA network ahead of the Singapore Government's decision to take back the frequency spectrum it was operating on by the end of this year.
"We have experienced so many problems with the CDMA network," he said. The decision to switch to W-CDMA was hastened by the inability of vendors to show their timetable for handsets and networks. He also said that setting up the W-CDMA system would cost M1 only about S$500 million (about HK$2.14 billion), compared with more than S$1 billion if it chose CDMA2000.
<snip and different article from same venue>
All the competition in systems on offer and services is expected to benefit the consumer ultimately.
"'What we all have to do is manage their experience moving to 3G with realistic expectations," said Ian Stone, chief executive of Hong Kong operator SmarTone, which is taking the GSM route with General Packet Radio Services, a 2.5G platform. <<
- Eric - |
