Cha2,
In what is probably my last post before I head off to Miami to try to figure out if smart cards have any chance of crossing the chasm in this new decade, let me attempt to answer your questions and maybe ask you one or two.
<< The FUDers use 3rd gen to mean new spectrum >>
No, Chaz. Third generation spectrum was proposed by the Japanese 15 years ago. 3G spectrum was decided in 1992. You follow Asia. You know that. I follow Europe. I know that.
America just plain don't give a darned. Using gunboat diplomacy we make our own rules.
I do not buy your derogatory use of the term "FUDers" applied to legitamate spoksmen so why don't you and I adopt a convention? How about both of us refrain from using the term FUD in our posts to each other. I think this makes sense, because while we are both trying to put the 2.5G/3G puzzle pieces together, we attach different connotation to the term FUD, and in particularly who uses it and how.
<< Why is new spectrum a magic key to 3rd gen? >>
Because 3G (defined by the ITU) has a very specific spectrum assigned to it. The Americas only have a portion of that spectrum available. American carriers and manufacturers (the 2nd tier of wireless manufacturers) are now using the terminology 3G to tag their offerings while the rest of the world would call them 2.5G offerings.
When DDI makes the statement (or someone attributes a statement to them) that cdma2000 will not be available till 2005, let me assure you that they know what they are talking about, and let me also assure you that they do not accept the the new "American definition" of 3G.
This is the reason that DDI could potentially adopt "W-CDMA" instead of cdmaOne in 3g spectrum.
3G also has specific data rate requirements to meet.
One requirement calls for data rates of 144 kbit/s at 500 kilometers an hour-the speed of a bullet train in Japan. Another specifies data traveling at 1,500 kilometers an hour-the speed of a jet aircraft.
This relates to the necessity to use a "Moving Van" for mobility testing of cdma in a mobile environment. I have observed some posters on the Qualcomm threads interpolate this into a statement that prototype W-CDMA terminals are the size of a truck. <g>
IS-2000 Release one (spec just released by TIA, and never field tested), purports to meet this 3G requirement? Do you know how IS-2000 release 1 was tested to this requirement or if it has been tested and if so, how it was tested?
On the other hand, the pedestrian data rate specifies a more reasonable wireless transmission at 384-kbit/s speeds. Evidently IS-2000 meets this requirement?
I assume IS-2000 will not have a problem with this when it is commercially rolled out, but since no contracts exist for commercial systems in the US and no time frames have been estimated for commercial rollout we will just have to wait and see.
<What makes GPRS 3rd gen? >>
GPRS is, was, and forever shall be gen 2.5. I hope I did not say differently. It should not then be compared to IS-2000 which Qualcomm has declared to be 3G.
EDGE has been declared to be 3G. That must mean it is 3G. If the UWCC declares it thus, it must be thus.
I guess 1S-95-B is CDMA's 2.5g offering. Too bad the US carriers have NO interest in it. As a cdma user, I would be interested in it. I am pretty tired of 14.4 kbps which is what we are going to living with that rate here for longer than I would like to think about.
I always thought that 1XRTT (now IS-2000 Release 1) was a 2.5G offer. CDG has declared it is a 3G offer just like UWCC has declared EDGE is a 3G offer (because they potentially meet the minimum data rate requirements of 3G). No wonder Tero criticizes us Americans.
Above, I have quoted from a very good 6 month old article on 2 occasions. These quotes are placed in italics. The article from which the quotes were derived is below, if anyone would care to read it.
>> THE BOOK OF GENESIS
teledotcom.com
Tele.Com October 04, 1999, Issue: 419
How complicated is standards development? Witness the troubled genesis of third-generation (3G) mobile standards for systems that may begin operating over the next few years.
3G mobile systems are aimed at enabling a true convergence of wireless and the Internet, including features such as higher-speed Internet access, multimedia access and global roaming. Work on system standards began more than a decade ago. That's when Japan, under pressure because of its own wireless capacity problems, took the first step in the 15-year 3G standardization process by promoting 3G wireless standards within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
"The Ministry of Telecommunications in Japan decided the only way new spectrum could be allocated would be through a third-generation system," says John Marinho, technology director in Lucent Technologies' Wireless Networks Group and chairman of the Telecommunications Industry Association's TR-45 engineering committee, which develops performance, compatibility, interoperability and service standards for certain mobile and personal communications services (PCS).
With prodding from Japan, the ITU went to work on the specifications that later became known as the ITU's International Mobile Telecommunications 2000 (IMT-2000) initiative.
While the ITU was immersed in developing 3G standards, the second generation of wireless telephony-digital, rather than first-generation analog-developed quickly in the competitive marketplace. Operators in the United States and Europe built their own competing second-generation (2G) systems, including the switches, base stations, platform infrastructure and wireless devices to support them. These extensive investments set the stage for three groups to battle it out for supremacy in the 3G war-those behind the U.S. version of time-division multiple access (TDMA), competing flavors of code-division multiple access (CDMA) and Europe's global system for mobile communication (GSM).
Further complicating the picture was a separate, years-old battle between Qualcomm Inc. (San Diego) and L.M. Ericsson AB (Stockholm) over intellectual property rights to wireless technologies that form the foundation of the 3G standards. That was settled in March, but not without the personal intervention of ITU Secretary-General Yoshio Utsumi and increasing pressure from Europe and Japan, which teamed up to lobby for a faster rollout of 3G than the United States wanted.
Utsumi was not alone in pressuring for cooperation on standards. The U.S. government reminded the European Commission this summer that Europe had promised the World Trade Organization (WTO) it would respect technology-neutral 3G licensing. Europe had initially indicated it wanted only wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) as its 3G standard and would unilaterally implement it. But U.S. Secretary of Commerce William Daley and U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky issued a letter stating that the United States will oppose any of the 15 European Union member states' licensing procedures that fail to include all forms of the 3G standards.
But that's getting ahead of the story.
When the ITU solicited proposals for a 3G wireless system in early 1997, second-generation wireless operators discovered they already met about 85 percent of the requirements. Among those remaining were the critical high-speed data rates needed for better Internet and multimedia capabilities.
Some participants in the process may have gotten carried away in their zeal for high data rates at high rates of mobility. One requirement calls for data rates of 144 kbit/s at 500 kilometers an hour-the speed of a bullet train in Japan. Another specifies data traveling at 1,500 kilometers an hour-the speed of a jet aircraft.
Yes, standards-building is a consensus process, but what killer application will require these high speeds of 3G? asked some of the participants. That question remains unanswered, especially when road warriors can download maps wirelessly at 28 kbit/s today.
On the other hand, the pedestrian data rate specifies a more reasonable wireless transmission at 384-kbit/s speeds-40 times today's GSM rate-at 3 kilometers an hour. And the indoor rate at 2 Mbit/s is already exceeded by wireless local-area networks (LANs) in the U.S. market.
Meanwhile, a conflict over which flavor of CDMA to use with 3G is being addressed. The Operators Harmonization Group (OHG), which represents most of the potential 3G service providers worldwide, last May reiterated its support of a common global specification for the different CDMA-based systems vying for 3G supremacy. The OHG's Harmonized Global 3G document provides a technical framework to mold a single, integrated 3G CDMA specification out of the separate W-CDMA and cdma2000 proposals offered to the ITU. The framework is supported by the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), made up of senior U.S. and European industry executives and gave everyone something to take home. It included the direct-spread solution to satisfy the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP); the multicarrier solution to satisfy 3GPP2 and ensure backward compatibility; and the encouragement of further harmonization via a common time-division duplex mode.
There's even more work going on in parallel with this. The Third Generation Partnership Projects (3GPP and 3GPP2) are working to ensure that all CDMA modes of the IMT-2000 air interfaces are compatible with both the ANSI-41 and the GSM Multiple Applications Part (MAP) core networks.
The OHG wants the CDMA communities to ensure that the ANSI-41 and GSM MAP networks talk to one another so that data records and other information can be exchanged, further facilitating roaming.
The TDMA proponents under UWC-136 have united ANSI-41 for circuit-switched services and GSM for packet-switched services, and are working to unify the two networks over time, says Paul Meche, former chairman of the Global TDMA Forum and director of new systems technologies at Nokia Mobile Phones Inc. (Espoo, Finland).
The TDMA proponents also have defined interworking functions for basic call delivery services and are working to incorporate enhanced functions such as Short Message Service (SMS) and calling line ID, he says.
The OHG also is recommending that 3GPP and 3GPP2 consider merging no later than December 2000 to focus on developing a unified core 3G network, and to ensure that the radio transmission technologies and their associated protocol layers work together.
Even all this doesn't close the book on 3G's genesis. The harmonization of the radio transmission technologies still must be approved by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and Japanese and Chinese standards bodies.
And then there's the licensing of spectrum for 3G. European Union members want to have a scheme for 3G operator licensing by Jan. 1, 2000, to prepare for service introductions starting in January 2002. Like standardization, licensing is a complex challenge-enough to fill another book.
Sandra Guy is a freelance writer based in Chicago. She can be reached at sguy178525@aol.com.
Copyright © 1999 CMP Media Inc. <<
Have a great week (or two). Hold down the fort.
- Eric - |
