re: Lynnette Luna on the Ongoing CDMA Crusade
>> "How well Qualcomm can turn around and sell WCDMA chips in a market it has been disparaging is the biggest issue hitting Qualcomm." - Matthew Hoffman, SoundView Financial Group.
>> Qualcomm Targets GSM World With CDMA Crusade — Again
Lynnette Luna
Telephony
Feb 25, 2002
Qualcomm last week announced a solution that allows GSM carriers to overlay a CDMA 1X air interface over their existing networks.
Sound familiar? The company announced a similar solution in 1998 and conducted a six-month trial with U.K. operator Vodafone that demonstrated the compatibility of the Interim Standard-95 CDMA with GSM networks.
Vodafone said it wasn't interested, and the hype surrounding the trial faded.
Qualcomm's argument is the same today as it was in 1998: GSM operators worldwide need more capacity than CDMA can provide.
“Our target is GSM operators throughout the world and some operators in Southeast Asia, the U.S., Africa and the Middle East — areas that don't have access to additional spectrum,” said Sanjay Jha, senior vice president of engineering for Qualcomm.
Dubbed GSM1X, the solution differs from past versions because it doesn't require any changes to GSM or CDMA standards, Jha said. The CDMA 1X physical layer sits on top of a GSM MAP network. GSM users can plug SIM cards into a CDMA phone and access the same features they could on the GSM network. Qualcomm demonstrated this at the 3GSM World Congress last week in Cannes, France.
But the prospect of selling CDMA in the GSM world today is as daunting as it was in 1998. Behind CEO Irwin Jacobs' tireless evangelism of CDMA technology, Qualcomm has long sought to penetrate the GSM market — especially in Europe — and fought for the convergence of today's flavor of CDMA with incompatible wideband CDMA (WCDMA). European operators and vendors have resisted Qualcomm's vocal reproach of GSM technology. In fact, some analysts believe Qualcomm will have a difficult time selling WCDMA chips in Europe.
“How well Qualcomm can turn around and sell WCDMA chips in a market it has been disparaging is the biggest issue hitting Qualcomm,” said Matthew Hoffman, wireless equipment analyst for SoundView Financial Group.
Qualcomm said the primary target of GSM1X is Asia, where operators aren't fiercely loyal to GSM technology, looking instead for the fastest way to offer high-speed data services. Mark Roberts, wireless equipment analyst for First Union Securities, said many Asian operators dedicated to WCDMA could opt for CDMA 1X after witnessing further delays in WCDMA rollouts. <<
- Eric - |
