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UWCC Statement on Gilder and Vigilante WSJ Editorial
The Technology Emperor Has No Clothes
Universal Wireless Communications Consortium releases statement on George Gilder and Richard Vigilante Editorial from Monday, May 1, 2000, Wall Street Journal
Bellevue, WA - May 8, 2000 - On May 1, 2000, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by self-proclaimed technology experts George Gilder and Richard Vigilante that harshly criticized TDMA technology. Gilder and Vigilante have been longstanding and vocal proponents of CDMA and Qualcomm over the years. Unfortunately, their rose colored glasses confuse their investment ideology and their technology knowledge, giving them a shortsightedness of the true global wireless marketplace.
We don?t understand why Gilder and Vigilante take such a seemingly single-minded approach to the next generation of the wireless industry. We argue that their facts are misleading and simply wrong. Gilder and Vigilante claim that CDMA (1) is more efficient and uses less power than TDMA; (2) has superior voice transmission; (3) is the only solution for voice and data; (4) uses HDR as the only way to better mobile wireless Internet performance; and (5) is the only way to assure the U.S. leadership for the wireless Internet.
Let?s look at what Gilder and Vigilante say, then let?s look at the facts in the real world. They claim that CDMA is three times more efficient and uses 1/20th the power of TDMA. That?s simply wrong. During the advent of CDMA, the technology was claimed to enable a more efficient utilization of radio spectrum. Efficiency of the overall system capacity is determined by more than just the air interface technology. According to actual operators that run both types of systems, the capacity of TDMA and CDMA real world systems have proven to be comparable.
On the issue of output power, the standards governing output power levels for terminal devices are roughly the same. Output power from the terminal is a major driver of capacity, battery life and coverage capabilities in a particular system regardless of technology. Today, TDMA offers some of the best performance characteristics available to the market.
There is simply no basis for their pronouncements on voice quality. Real world customers and technology laboratories throughout the world support findings that the three most popular wireless technologies TDMA, CDMA and GSM all offer comparable quality in voice transmission and capacity.
There are five terrestrial wireless data strategies that are being supported by ITU for 3G solutions and two of them are taking the lead in support from operators. First there is EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution) supported by TDMA-EDGE operators, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Telecommunications Industry Association (ITA), and GSM Association (GSMA). Second, there is UMTS supported by ITU, ETSI, GSMA as well as other standards bodies. These two standards, built on the same GPRS network backbone, can work together to provide customers ITU approved technology solutions. EDGE equipment deployments (not vaporware as referred to by Gilder and Vigilante) will occur in 2001 and 2002. These applications will provide customers speeds averaging 384 kbps in a mobile environment and offer a complete migration path to an end-to-end IP network for voice and data.
Gilder and Vigilante beat the drum for a technology that will require millions and millions of dollars to be spent by U.S. CDMA operators to upgrade systems to improve capacity changes to CDMA equipment that was just installed not long ago. This improved capacity for operators would be at the expense of consumers who would have to acquire new handsets or have old handsets modified.
There is particular bias revealed in the support voiced for Qualcomm's HDR technology. HDR is not a first generation, second generation or even third generation approved wireless standard. It requires CDMA operators to deploy a separate packet data network overlay, which is not integrated with their existing voice network. It has little if any support from global standards bodies and at this time would be considered a proprietary solution.
Look back in time to the video recording industry and the battle of Beta versus VHS to understand the isolation that could happen to operators in the U.S. that adopt HDR technology. The high speed data throughput speeds claimed by Gilder and Vigilante would most likely only occur (and any radio engineer would be happy to explain) if, and only if, there are very few users on a wireless system and if they are in direct sight of the base station antenna. In real world circumstances the throughput of HDR would be similar to EDGE or UMTS systems in a mobile environment.
Their claim that if AT&T turned to CDMA, the U.S. could command a critical mass of customers that assures the nation global leadership in wireless Internet is a joke. All of the major wireless technologies except CDMA are based on Time Division Multiple Access: GSM, TDMA, iDEN, PDC and PHS. They represent more than 90% of all wireless subscribers in the world today and cover virtually every city and every country. Perhaps Gilder and Vigilante also forgot that HDR incorporates Time Division Multiplexing to improve its performance on the downlink side.
The real question should be Why didn?t the CDMA operators follow the technology lead of SBC Wireless when they acquired Ameritech? SBC Wireless has taken CDMA equipment out and replaced it with TDMA, a standard that will evolve to global 3G wireless services.
Wireless voice and data technology leadership of the U.S. depends on the evolution to 3G solutions, not on becoming an island of technology as Gilder and Vigilante propose. TDMA and GSM operators both support EDGE technology. TDMA leads in market share and coverage in the Western Hemisphere. GSM leads in market share and coverage in Europe, Asia and Africa. Gilder and Vigilante?s HDR recommendation would not lead to technology leadership in the United States, but ensure technology isolation for all consumers, vendors and application developers moving toward 3G wireless data services.
The UWCC has worked hard for the benefit of consumers to establish global cooperative programs. We thought the holy wars of digital air interface during the past ten years had been settled with the realization that the free and open marketplace will determine the success of technology decisions. Yet here we are again, being exposed to a xenophobic diatribe from technologist emperors that have no clothes.
The UWCC is a Bellevue, Washington-based international consortium of more than 100 wireless carriers and vendors supporting the TDMA-EDGE & WIN technology standards. TDMA-EDGE network operators currently serve an estimated 65 million TDMA and Analog subscribers within their networks. The TDMA-EDGE ?Taking Wireless Beyond the Call? technology brand represents not only second generation enhanced services but also 3G compliant high-speed wireless data and Internet access technology to be available anytime, anywhere.
Board Members of the UWCC include: Alcatel USA, AT&T Wireless Services (USA), BellSouth Cellular Corp. (USA), BCP S.A. (Brazil), Cable and Wireless (United Kingdom), Cellcom (Israel), Celumovil (Colombia), Compaq Computer Corporation, Ericsson Radio Systems, Hughes Network Systems, Industar Digital PCS (USA), Lucent Technologies, Mobikom SDN, BHD (Malaysia), Motorola, Movilnet (Venezuela), Nokia, Nortel Networks, Rogers Wireless (Canada), SBC Wireless (USA), Sony, Telecom Personal (Argentina), Telefonica Unifon (Argentina), and VimpelCom (Russia).
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Contact
UWCC
Chris Pearson
425-372-8925
chris.pearson@uwcc.org |
