Qualcomm chief urges opening of 3G spectrum
By Mike Clendenin
EE Times, January 20, 2003 (10:31 p.m. EST)
commsdesign.com
HONOLULU, Hawaii — Qualcomm CEO Irwin Jacobs told a gathering of peers on Sunday that government regulators need to think twice about the model used for licensing spectrum for third generation networks.
During a speech at the Pacific Telecommunications Council gathering in Hawaii, Jacobs said one of the obstacles to rolling out 3G networks is spectrum limitations dictated by governments. “We need to carefully examine whether we are unreasonably restricting the use of different frequency bands,” Jacobs said, suggesting that many lower bands could be opened up.
“The ITU has not specified a particular frequency band, but there are some regions, and some regulators and some legislators that say it can't be third generation unless it's in this spectrum, the 2.1GHz for example,” he said.
Telecom operators, especially in Europe, have spent billions in government auctions to lock up spectrum for 3G services. So far, however, few operators have been able to roll out the services and have found themselves burdened by the heavy debt loads. Jacobs said he understood governments using the auctions as a revenue source, “but that doesn't necessarily get the technology out to the users as quickly as possible and as economically as possible.”
Despite the slow rollout of 3G services, Jacobs said 20 percent of phones shipped this year would be 3G-capable. Regardless of whether that target is reached, most 3G phones in 2003 will be based on Qualcomm's cdma2000 1x technology, which has been a success story in Korea and is catching on in China. Jacobs claimed his company has already shipped some 70 million CDMA chips.
Jacobs also warned his colleagues that the telecom slump will continue this year, forcing the industry to be more innovative in order to spur sales. An example, he said, is the introduction by year's end of several “true world phones” that will operate on GSM and CDMA networks. |
