To all : article from WSJ regarding 3G and dispute with EU (sorry if this was already posted)
January 19, 1999
EU Commission Says U.S. Spurned
Rules for a Mobile-Phone Standard
By BRANDON MITCHENER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BRUSSELS -- Dismissing U.S. charges that it is discriminating against U.S.
companies in the booming mobile-phone business, the European Commission
Monday accused the U.S. of failing to play by globally agreed rules in a
high-stakes battle over standards.
"We've always been in favor of a world-wide standard," said Paul Verhoef, a
member of the European Commission's industrial policy department. The
prevailing digital mobile-phone standard in Europe, GSM, "works everywhere
in the world, with the exception of large parts of the U.S. and Canada," he said.
Mr. Verhoef's comments followed the publication of a letter by his boss,
Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann, to U.S. Secretary of State Madeline
Albright. The letter was sent last Friday in response to a Dec. 19 complaint
signed by Ms. Albright and U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky,
Secretary of Commerce William Daley and Federal Communications
Commission Chairman William Kennard.
Although Mr. Bangemann's letter didn't represent any change in European
policy, it represented the highest-level contact to-date between EU and U.S.
officials and said it is the U.S., not Europe, which isn't playing by the rules of
the International Telecommunications Union of the United Nations.
The exchange was the latest salvo in a frosty political dispute between the
15-nation European Union and the U.S. over technical standards for the next
generation of digital cellular telephones.
The European Commission has endorsed industry agreement on a single
standard within Europe, and submitted that standard for consideration as a
global standard under the auspices of the ITU. The latter has set a March 31
deadline for deciding on several key elements of global third-generation, or 3G,
mobile phone systems, which promise improved mobile Internet and video
transmissions.
The U.S., which supports competition among systems, has expressed fears
that a new pan-European standard would preempt the sale in Europe of
products based on competing standards.
Industry people say the U.S. appears to be reacting to intensive lobbying from
Qualcomm Inc., a U.S. high-tech company that claims the intellectual property
rights for the technology underlying the European standard. The Qualcomm
standard is called CDMA. The European standard, developed by Telefon AB
L.M. Ericsson of Sweden, is called WCDMA.
The U.S. Mission to the EU didn't return phone calls seeking comment.
But Perry LaForge, executive director of a trade association called CDMA
Development Group, or CDG, says the EU appears to be heading toward a
showdown with Qualcomm and the ITU, which could suspend discussion of
3G systems if Qualcomm and the European standards-setting body fail to
compromise.
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