This thread is really interesting.When I started to stress the
importance of the choice of the 3rd generation standard in Europe a couple of month ago nobody here could see any importance of it.
Some hoped that the CDMA overlay trials at Vodaphone would
result in big sale of infrastructure in Europe.I mentioned that
there was an agreement by the operators and manufacturers that
one standard would be chosen but nobody here believed me.
In ETSI Vodaphone was one of the big supporters of the W-CDMA
concept.Last week almost all the big GSM-operators in Asia also said that they supported this standard so any hope of a GSM overlay
there is dead also.
When it became clearer even here that there where to be a choice
between 2 standards and none of them IS-95 in ETSI the second
line of arguments came.
Waporvare(Maurice),They will never agree,ETSI not important the market will decide (Ira Brosky on Frezza).
The first argument about Waporvare is the most silly one.The argument was that there was just a panic reaction from Ericsson
Nokia to stop QCOM.Operators like NTT-Docomo,Telia,Vodaphone
Mannesman,Tele Italia was big supporters of this standard.The only
company with the same competence in USA as this operators
when it comes to cellular systems is ATT(Before the breakup anyway)
NTT-Docomo of Japan has developed 3 different cellular standards
themselves.The analogue system,PDC and PHS so they are maybe
the most competent operator in the world.
Telia of Sweden was maybe the operator that contributed most to
the developement of GSM.They also developed the first big comercial
cellular standard in the world, NMT.
Vodaphone,Tele Italia and Mannesman are all huge cellular companys with a lot of competence.
Do you really think that they would support WCDMA if they
didn't know that it was a great concept.Some thought that it was
just politics.Nokia and Ericsson had so much power in Europe so
the could influence the vote.Siemens of Germany ,Alcatel and
Matra(Nortel) of France,Italtel of Italy supported the other standard.
Ericsson and Nokia is big in the GSM-world but they together are
a much smaller company than Siemens.Sweden and Finland has
13 m people.Germany has 80.I can assure you that nordic companys when it come to politics has very litlle say in Europe compare to French,German and Italian companys.
.Another line of thinking here was that it was just no working system("Show us the stuff").Of course
they don't have any working system.They will start to specify it now.
They have just agreed about the framework of the standard.Now it's
up to ETSI to specify all the details together with NTT-Docomo
and other inerested parties
Someone here on this thread mentioned that it was possible to
standardize a system that will not work.I agree about that but in this case it is just wishful thinking.Of course they have done experiments
to see that the standard will work.The first experimental systems has
already been sent to NTT.
The second argument was the one I agreed with most("They will never agree").Now we know the fact .They agreed to support the
Ericsson Nokia Waporvare.
The third argument was that it's fundamentally wrong to
standardize 1 system and not let the market decide like here in US.I haven't heard so many protests about all other thing that are
standardized here and makes equipment cheaper(NTSC TV-standard
Signalling between public switches, 110 v etc.).
I think the underlying thing here is that people on this thread is afraid
that Ericsson will take what it's rightfully QCOM:s.QCOM developed
CDMA and that is it! QCOM didn't invented CDMA and in the CDMA
systems here in US they have taken a lot from the GSM-system
without saying they are sorry.I can just take an example,Short message service.They had the advantage to come after GSM so they took a lot of the experiences from that when they developed their
systems.All digital systems are similar.They have different ways to
transmitt the information but the rest is similar like the logical channel structure for example.
Now when they will develop WCDMA they will of course see what
mistakes they have done in the IS-95 standard and use that to develop a better system.10 years is a long time in this area.Of course
IS-95 can do the same thing.But the problem is backward compatibilty
with old mobiles.I don't know what power QCOM has to stop the
WCDMA system via their patents but I know if they try to QCOM will
become a paria in the telecomworld.A lot of companys has done
so much more to develop the cellular systems than QCOM.The
airinterface coding is just a very small part of a cellular system .Does anyone know what power the IPR:s gives in this case?
The big misstake QCOM:s management did was not to see the
danger that lied ahead with the ETSI vote.What they should have
done was that they should have offered the WCDMA-one to ETSI
as one of the alternatives for the vote and said that they would
change it to open system not owned by QCOM.I am afraid that
QCOM has lost now.Now the operators around the world can
continue to choose GSM which today has the smallest phones
and most features and still know that the system can be upgraded
to a highspeed network in the future.QCOM:s management has
just been to american.Fight everything in court,shortsighted etc.
Of course they have made some fortunes in the short run.But what will happen in the company in the long run?
/R
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