Vaporwareeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
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Dan ,
Here is an article that was afforded in April of 1997 which provides a lot of talk about vaporware or bcdma /wcdma. I have chose a few thing to comment on but the whole article is worth reading . Note the comment by the director of the CDG (Cdma Development Group ), he says "CDG Executive Director Perry LaForge said the new IS-95 data rate would be substantially better" than the 9.6 and 14.4 kbps capabilities coming into the market this year. However, vendor sources indicated they will hit the new plateau of 64 kbps with products within a two-year time frame. To go beyond that level, they said, will require implementation of wider band channels of 5 megahertz or more, which will require a new standard. "
How about the paragraph were the Motorola rep says "We'll be deploying our first voice-speed data systems at 9.6/14.4 [kbps] in August, with general product availability coming later in the year," said Graham Haddock, vice president and general manager of Motorola Inc.'s Personal Communications Division. "There's probably a two-year horizon on getting to 56 and 64 kilobit data rates."
Note how the spokesperson for CDG says . " To go beyond that level, they said, will require implementation of wider band channels of 5 megahertz or more, which will require a new standard. "
Seems to me that 5mhz is right were vaporware wcdma and bcdma are targeted and also he mentions a new standard. HMM.
Also note what Mark Lemmo of IDC says, ""We expect to have the 144 kbps product available commercially in the first half of next year and will move to 384 kbps as the next step by the end of '98," Lemmo said. The system is designed to work at a number of bandwidth levels, depending on local operator licensing and business strategies, with scalability in increments of 3.5 megahertz, he added.
At 15 megahertz, the top level channelization scheme possible with the InterDigital system, the system will eventually be able to deliver aggregate throughput of 2.88 Mbps at a propagation distance of 10 kilometers, Lemmo said.
The CDG spokesperson is saying 14.4 like the old modems for 08/97 and in two years 64 kbps , Mot is saying the same and IDC's consortium have demonstrated 144 kbs three times this year and says 384 by the end of 98. ERICY has also said 384 with their wideband system. IDC claims at maximum bandwidth a huge output of 2.8 million bytes per second.
Broadband or Wideband is clearly intended at first to capture the fixed WLL . This market is the masses who have never made a phone call. If we are to assume that all the above statements are true than clearly the CDG rep as well as the Mot person have told us that narrow band IS-95 doesn't have the capabilities of a broadband version. I don't feel bcdma or wcdma are currently a threat to IS-95 because they lack mobility. When and if either become mobile as promised they would definitely be a threat.
From the April 21, 1997 issue of Wireless Week
Vendors To Introduce Wide-bandwidth CDMA
Proponents Demand Compatibility
By Fred Dawson
Wireless system suppliers are preparing to announce a big leap forward in Interim Standard-95 support for higher data
speeds. This comes at a moment when market demand for even wider-band services threatens to outpace efforts to achieve a
next-generation code division multiple access standard.
The CDMA Development Group will soon unveil a vendor-supported strategy for making it possible to deliver up to
64-kilobit-per-second data streams over IS-95 systems operating within the current 1.25-megahertz channelization scheme.
At the same time, the group is pursuing an advanced systems initiative aimed at pushing throughput into the
1-megabit-per-second range and beyond over next-generation systems that would be backward compatible with IS-95.
CDG Executive Director Perry LaForge said the new IS-95 data rate would be "substantially better" than the 9.6 and 14.4
kbps capabilities coming into the market this year. However, vendor sources indicated they will hit the new plateau of 64 kbps
with products within a two-year time frame. To go beyond that level, they said, will require implementation of wider band
channels of 5 megahertz or more, which will require a new standard.
"We'll be deploying our first voice-speed data systems at 9.6/14.4 [kbps] in August, with general product availability coming
later in the year," said Graham Haddock, vice president and general manager of Motorola Inc.'s Personal Communications
Division. "There's probably a two-year horizon on getting to 56 and 64 kilobit data rates."
However, as developers seek to parlay operators' investments in IS-95 infrastructure into a long-range evolutionary track that
will ensure next-generation wideband systems are backward compatible with today's systems, market demand for wideband
capabilities at 144 kbps and above is pushing development of proprietary CDMA systems at a faster clip, especially in
applications tied to fixed, wireless local loop services. As a result, there are likely to be proprietary CDMA systems available
operating at 144 kbps or above as the IS-95 systems move to 64 kbps.
"You're going to see a lot of those [WLL] systems deployed over the next couple of years," said John Marinho, technical
director for wireless network systems at Lucent Technologies Inc. "These proprietary excursions in the interim between now
and when standards are completed could divert attention away from the standards-setting process."
Under its advanced systems initiative, CDG is working with service providers and manufacturers to define "a multitude" of
mobile and fixed service capabilities that are not available over IS-95 systems today, LaForge said. "We want to ensure that
current CDMA system operators will have a simplified evolution to next-generation services."
Vendors are not clear yet as to where the major opportunities lie for wideband systems, although the earliest versions are
aimed at meeting requirements in fixed WLL applications. However, there is also considerable interest in mobile applications
that would allow customers to connect PCs and other intelligent devices to data links on an untethered basis, Haddock noted.
"Our marketing people and customers are still arguing over where the primary applications lie, in fixed or mobile," he said.
Once CDG has worked out the requirements for a next-generation, IS-95 compatible system, it will submit them to the
International Telecommunications Union as part of the ITU's pursuit of a comprehensive next-generation standard known as
"International Mobile Telecommunications 2000."
Many parties to the ITU discussion expect to see CDMA emerge as the template for next-generation systems, with various
iterations tailored to the legacy needs of national infrastructures. However, the process is in flux with considerable
disagreement over time frames and the extent to which the final standard will be tied exclusively to CDMA.
"In Europe, the push for a next-generation standard is pretty much the work of the same group that brought out GSM [global
system for mobile communications]," Haddock noted. "CDMA is one of the two finalists [with time division multiple access] as
that group's choice of an air interface, but they're probably still a year away from making a final decision."
So far, the Europeans have set 2003-2004 as the target dates for completing a next-generation standard, but interests
elsewhere believe the date should be moved up. "There's a great deal of debate going on over the timeframe for arriving at a
standard," Marinho said, noting that people in Japan are pushing for agreement by 2000.
The focal point of wideband CDMA efforts in Japan is an initiative undertaken by wireless service provider NTT DoCoMo,
which has called on Lucent, Ericsson Inc. and several other vendors to supply 5-megahertz CDMA systems capable of
delivering 384 kbps for experimental installations by the end of this year, with the capability of eventually handling data rates of
up to 2 Mbps. The Japanese and European next-generation CDMA concepts are incompatible with each other, and neither is
backward compatible with IS-95.
CDG's advanced systems team hopes to work closely with NTT DoCoMo to achieve closer compatibilities between the
next-generation Japanese and IS-95-related systems, LaForge said, noting that eight of the manufacturers selected by NTT
are members of CDG. With deployment of IS-95 now racing forward in cellular, PCS and WLL applications, it "is now clear
that IS-95 will serve as the foundation for wideband next-generation systems as well," he said.
Others are more cautious. "Whether it turns out that we have one worldwide next-generation CDMA standard is a big
question at this point," Haddock said. He noted the NTT group is hoping to persuade the Europeans to take the Japanese
approach, which would break with the IS-95 mold.
Backers of IS-95 compatibility have to contend with several factors underlying resistance to this step, Haddock said. These
include costs of incorporating the IS-95 interfaces and a distaste in many quarters for using technology that must be licensed
through a U.S. supplier-namely, Qualcomm Inc.
However, from the IS-95 user's perspective, the lower cost approach is one that takes advantage of some of the existing
infrastructure to support the next-generation system, he added.
With the pace and direction of next-generation standards setting in contention among the leading powers in wireless, suppliers
of proprietary systems see a near-term opportunity for their products in a market hungry for more bandwidth. In one case in
point, InterDigital Communications Corp., supplier of the TDMA-based UltraPhone in conjunction with Siemens AG and
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., is now working with these firms on development of fixed wireless wideband CDMA systems
for trials in the United States and abroad, starting later this year.
The first trial made known publicly is slated to take place over the facilities of Worldwide Wireless Inc., which has licenses in a
variety of frequency bands covering territories in three New England states. This system will operate at 144 kbps with the
capability of delivering data at integrated services digital network speeds simultaneously with voice and related
telecommunications services, said Mark Lemmo, executive vice president of engineering and product operations at InterDigital.
"We expect to have the 144 kbps product available commercially in the first half of next year and will move to 384 kbps as the
next step by the end of '98," Lemmo said. The system is designed to work at a number of bandwidth levels, depending on
local operator licensing and business strategies, with scalability in increments of 3.5 megahertz, he added.
At 15 megahertz, the top level channelization scheme possible with the InterDigital system, the system will eventually be able to
deliver aggregate throughput of 2.88 Mbps at a propogation distance of 10 kilometers, Lemmo said.
Developers working within the IS-95 framework are leaning toward 5-megahertz channels as the optimum scheme for fixed
and mobile applications alike. The first iterations are likely to operate at 144 kbps, with later versions topping out at
"somewhere between 384 and 500 kbps," Haddock said.
By moving to a packetized format for data, next-generation systems will support allocation of bandwidth on a contention basis,
increasing the number of potential users per channel, Haddock noted. Moreover, use of sectorized antennas will support
frequency reuse within the cell serving area so that, overall, a fairly large number of users will be able to connect at high-speed
data rates, he added.
Yet even 1 Mbps throughput at the 5-megahertz channel level "would be pushing it," as Haddock put it, which means the data
rate per any level of frequency allocation will remain much lower for CDMA wireless access than it is for wireline access.
However, use of smart antenna technology could go a long way toward improving the bandwidth efficiency, making
CDMA-based systems more competitive in fixed applications, Marinho noted.
"Smart antennas will play an ever greater role in increasing the throughput capability of CDMA," Marinho said. "As the number
of users goes up, so does the interference, which smart antennas can help minimize."
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