Third Generation Mobile Phones Target Data: Tech Focus (Repeat)
Bloomberg News
Feb 2 1999 5:18AM ET
Third Generation Mobile Phones Target Data: Tech Focus (Repeat)
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Stockholm, Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Ten seconds. That's how long it will take to download a video clip over the new so-called third-generation mobile phone technology due 2001.
One hour. That's how long it takes with today's second- generation technology, which primarily transmits voice.
Mobile phone users are set to double to 600 million in 2001, and they're increasingly demanding the ability to do more than just talk with their cellular phones.
With the next technology, using the word ''phone'' -- it comes from the ancient Greek for sound -- to describe the new products from Nokia Oyj, Motorola Inc. and Ericsson AB will be deceptive. These products, which may look more like small computer screens, will be able to send postcards, get real-time news and stock quotes, or even hold video conferences.
''The average person will get features on his phone that he can still only dream about,'' said Jaakko Niemelae, chief analyst at Finland's Mandatum Bank.
The Communicator 9000 made by Helsinki-based Nokia, the biggest cellular phone company, is one of the most advanced phones available today. It allows the user to access email, send some data files in addition to transmitting voice. Still, the phone's data capacity and speed is limited by the simpler technology of today's second-generation networks.
Not so Easy
By 2002, about a quarter of traffic on cellular networks will be data, not voice, up from 2 percent today, said Doug McGregor, a vice president at Northern Telecom Ltd., North America's No. 2 phone-equipment maker. Within five years, Nortel sees the market for third-generation networks at $60 billion.
New technology will also reduce or even eliminate today's problem of phone owners not being able to use their phone in service areas with different standards or radio frequencies. Already, some sell dual-band phones which can switch between radio frequencies, much like switching from FM to AM on a radio dial. And some have dual-mode phones that function on different standards.
''As long as there aren't more than two or three standards it won't be a catastrophe,'' said Jan Ihrfelt, an analyst at Swedbank. ''There will still be fewer than for the second generation.''
Incompatibility is a problem today with four different second-generation digital standards, in addition to satellite and some older analog ones. And the problem is likely to spill over into the next generation of technology with companies such as Ericsson, the No. 3 cellular company, and San Diego, California- based Qualcomm Inc. battling over standards and patents.
While Europe is currently unified by one standard based on Global System for Mobile communication, the U.S. has three --GSM, Digital Advanced Mobile Phone Service, or D-AMPS, and IS-95. Japan has its own standard called Personal Digital Cellular.
That's made it harder for the U.S. to back one single standard for the new generation of technology, while the European Union and Japan have already chosen theirs.
Even if all countries could agree on the same standard, not all are allowing phone service companies to use the same radio frequency. The new technology has been allotted the same frequency in all countries except for the U.S., which has already pledged that radio air space to other communications services.
A Global Decision
There are 10 different proposals for the next generation of cellular technology put before the International Telecommunication Union, which has been formed to make global recommendations on standards. Its decision on the third generation is due in 2000.
Six of the proposals are based on WCDMA radio access, or Wide-band Code-Division Multiple Access, which Europe and Japan are taking on. The other main standard bases are CDMA2000 and an evolution of D-AMPS, based on Time-Division Multiple Access, or TDMA.
Both WCDMA and CDMA2000 are based on broadband CDMA technology, but differ on a few issues including chip speed. While Ericsson and Nokia want more than four Megachips per second, Qualcomm backs a rate of 3.6864. The Europeans claim a higher speed improves the quality of transmitted data, while Qualcomm wants a rate that is compatible with existing narrow- band CDMA technology.
For the Europeans, that compatibility is less of a concern because their second generation GSM standard is based on TDMA. They have to switch to a new standard anyway, as well as form other applications that will allow bridging between the two.
Some countries aren't waiting for the ITU to make a decision. Finland, the nation with the highest rate of cellular phone and Internet users in the world, last month said 15 companies applied for four operating licenses for the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System. The U.K. will follow suit this year.
'Free-for-All'
UMTS, which is based on WCDMA, is the system Europe has chosen to back for the next generation of cellular communication.
Across the Atlantic, the U.S. is backing three proposals for varying standards to the ITU.
''It's a free-for-all,'' said Sam Gronner, a spokesman at Lucent Technologies Inc., the world's No. 1 phone-equipment maker. ''People don't care what language their handset talks to the network - they just care about their services.''
Whatever the outcome, most of the new generation phones will be snapped up first by business professionals who need multimedia or bulk data communication on the go.
When it eventually becomes affordable for parents to speak to and see their children with a mobile phone, the companies will be working on their fourth generation of technology.
By then, the technicians may have moved beyond the dilemma of transmitting both voice and data with the same mode. They may even be trying to figure how to send smells across a network, said an executive at Ericsson. --Marybeth Berger and Linda Andersson in the Stockholm newsroom (46-8) 610 0700, with reporting by Pontus Byring in Helsinki, Melissa Pozsgay in Paris, and Kate Norton and Bundeep Rangar in London jl Story illustration: NOKIA SS
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