All: nice summary of Ericy 'compromise' (curtisy of Phillips Telecom)
Ericsson's 3G Harmonization Proposal Falls Flat With
CDMA Camp
The CDMA community is, to say the least, unimpressed by L.M. Ericsson AB [ERICY] and its proposal to lower the chip rate of
the wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) standard from 4.096 megachips per second (mcps) to 3.84 mcps. Earlier this week, Ericsson
Vice President of Marketing and Sales Ake Persson said the company is "optimistic" its proposal meets all requirements for a
harmonized third-generation (3G) wireless technology to emerge from W-CDMA and other competing technologies (CT, 12/9).
However, the CDMA Development Group (CDG), which backs the competing cdma2000 technology proposal, today
characterized the move as a red herring intended to let Ericsson appear open to compromise while not actually offering anything
constructive.
Among other things, CDG disputed Ericsson's claim that reducing W-CDMA's chip rate will result in a reduction in 3G system
performance. With the two sides supporting different chip speeds, a proposal for a rate somewhere in the middle may look like a
compromise on the surface, but CDG Executive Director Perry LaForge said W-CDMA's 4.096 mcps rate will not work within
the 5-MHz channel allocations planned for the United States. Moreover, the 3.84 mcps rate remains incompatible with the 3.68
mcps needed to maintain compatibility with current-generation CDMA systems, he said.
Since GSM systems will have to make significant changes to reach W-CDMA, LaForge reasoned that the only rationale for
choosing an incompatible chip rate is to impose a similar burden on CDMA network operators. (W-CDMA is the technology
backed as an evolutionary path for GSM.) "There's no performance advantage to 3.84," he said. "That's not compromise. I think
it's actually more of an insult."
Ericsson's proposal touched off confusion in some industry quarters. Peter MacLaren, vice president of strategic market relations
for Northern Telecom Ltd. [NT], said the Canadian manufacturer supports 3.84 mcps as a better chip rate for W-CDMA than
4.096 mcps -- but noted that 3.84 mcps was, ironically, Ericsson's original proposed chip rate for W-CDMA. The 4.096 mcps rate,
backed by major players in the Japanese wireless industry and agreed to during negotiations with European manufacturers, is
difficult to implement in a 5 MHz channel, he said, agreeing with LaForge.
Nortel is "somewhat mystified by the Ericsson proposal as offering a compromise," MacLaren said. "I would tend to agree... that
moving from 4.096 to 3.84 or any other number, if it's not 3.68, really does nothing for cdma2000." If a consensus forms around a
move to 3.84, MacLaren said, Nortel will "probably end up being supportive... but it doesn't do anything for the agendas Ericsson
claims it does."
In the meantime, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has sounded a strong warning that having the W-CDMA and
cdma2000 camps at loggerheads poses a serious risk of upsetting 3G development plans. The ITU specifically criticized cdma2000
proponent Qualcomm Inc. [QCOM] as well as Ericsson on this score.
ITU expressed concern that a continuing stalemate could "mark the end of a dream: the dream for consumers to have truly
'anywhere, anytime' communication, across networks, across frontiers, across technologies for personal access to Information
Age services. Given the glittering prize that third generation represents, it is now time to make sure this chance is not wasted."
This is remarkably charged language for the normally stodgy ITU. In its statement, the Geneva-based arm of the United Nations
threatened that if the ongoing patent dispute between Ericsson and Qualcomm isn't resolved by the end of 1998, it may dump both
proposals and go with a TDMA-derived standard for 3G.
The ITU succeeded in getting the industry's attention. "It was a much more aggressive tone than we're normally used to seeing,"
said Nortel's MacLaren. "I took it as a fairly strong reminder to the interested parties that it was a good time to sit down and come
up with some accommodation because if they can't, there's a real lose-lose potential here."
CDG's LaForge seemed unimpressed, however. "By and large, everyone in the world is looking for a CDMA solution," he said. "I
don't see 3G being successful having a TDMA-based solution. If the ITU wants to proceed down that path... I don't see the
market demanding that kind of a solution."
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