AWE chief Technology Officer, Mr. Nelson gets disected by Mr Molloy. This type of mis-information and FUD just doesn't stand up under careful examination.
JohnG
To: Stu R who wrote (10031)
From: w molloy
Saturday, May 13, 2000 1:11 AM ET
Reply # of 10053
Rebbuttal to the Rebuttal.
I've read some BS in my time, but this takes the biscuit!
AT&T Wireless utilizes TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) IS-136 digital technology, the most widely
deployed technology in the Americas. For data services, AT&T Wireless relies on its packet-based CDPD
(Cellular Digital Packet Data) technology to deliver information efficiently and securely over its Wireless
IP network.
Nothing wrong with this paragraph. I have snipped it because of what Nelson is about to say later....
AT&T's TDMA (voice) and CDPD (packet-based data) networks today deliver seamless voice and data
services to over 3,000 cities nationwide.
Seamless!! Nelson has forgotten that his CDPD network is based on AMPS - the extant analog network.
Nelson's use of 'seamless' is obviously more flexible than mine.
Most importantly, our packet-based network allows AT&T to offer our customers flat-rate pricing for voice
and
data services, which is something CDMA cannot offer. No CDMA solution offers these combined benefits to
carriers or customers.
Pure FUD. He implies that there is something intrinsic to CDMA that stops flat rate pricing. Of course, there
isn't.
AT&T Wireless is pursuing its plans to cost-effectively upgrade its existing TDMA network to EDGE
(Enhanced Data-rates for Global Evolution). EDGE will bring 3G high-speed voice and data capabilities
to every major city around the world. What's unique about EDGE is that it bridges two dominant wireless
standards - TDMA in the Western Hemisphere and GSM which is used throughout Europe and Asia - to
provide seamless 3G services over one compatible network.
AT&T can pursue it's plans all it wants. The shareholders might be better served if AT&T looked into what
the increasingly global network operators are up to. The GSM.IS-36 route to 3G via EDGE is an old view,
superceded by
Europes move towards UMTS (i.e. DS-WCDMA, and Japans move to it's own flavor of WCDMA (DDI
notwithstanding). So much for a global compatible network. Nelson also conveniently forgets that other
'unique' feature of EDGE technology -> it is largely unproven.
Because TDMA and GSM are based on common elements of time division multiplexing, this is a natural
convergence.
Now this is just a ploy to link IS-136 to GSM. Yes, they are both types of TDMA systems, but a Yugo and an
Formula 1 GP car have more in common.
GSM and TDMA combined have about 250 million subscribers today and will double in 2 to 3 years. These
technologies will continue to enjoy the largest market share, bringing service to more than 80% of the
world's wireless subscribers.
And here is why Nelson has attempted to link IS-136 with GSM! He now claims (by association) to share in
GSM's worldwide success. Don't be fooled folks.
Let me also clarify some of the blatant misinformation hyped by CDMA proponents.
Pots and Kettles spring to mind!
First, CDMA is far from a dominant worldwide standard for wireless technology. There are more than 11
million paying TDMA customers in North American, compared to 7 million claimed by the CDMA
Development Group. Worldwide TDMA has five times as many subscribers as CDMA. Nearly 250 million
people use TDMA and GSM technologies, compared to 50 million attributed to CDMA.
He is misleading by referring to 'CDMA' as a standard. It is a technology. The current commercial CDMA
networks use IS-95 or J-008 standards. I don't recall anyone claiming these standards were dominant
worldwide. Also, I don't think anyone would deny that wideband CDMA as a technology will be dominant in 5
years time.
Now that he has linked IS-136 and GSM as TDMA systems, he feels free to use GSM subscriber figures to
bolster his bluster.
Secondly, it's economically viable for AT&T Wireless to migrate our equipment to third generation wireless
services by building on our existing base. Our TDMA assets and
wholly-owned spectrum and alliances around the world make it strategically sensible for us to migrate in
tandem with the GSM operators around the world. And, our technology plan delivers similar or higher data
rates (384kbps) as the CDMA
proponents at much lower cost. These cost savings ultimately benefit TDMA customers.
What cost savings? What alliances around the world? IS-136 is USA only! EDGE hasn't been built! CDMA
data rates will be 2Mbps not 384kbps!!
The ease with which TDMA IS-136 channels could be
exchanged for analog channels enabled rapid nationwide digital coverage, while CDMA operators still
struggle for contiguous "all-digital" coverage.
And I thought IS-95 spectrum allocation did exactly the same!
In 1997, it was AT&T Wireless that introduced customers to the wireless web with its PocketNet Service,
allowing customers - for the first time -- to access the Internet
using their wireless phones. Let us also not forget how AT&T Wireless revolutionized the way people use
their wireless phones when it introduced Digital One Rate, the country's first flat-rate pricing plan.
And lets not forget that AT&T invented CDPD in 1993. PCSI and Hughes were producing Base Stations and
Modems in 1995.
Nelson should have said that AT&T promise to deliver late.
Finally, CDMA's circuit-switched networks have limitations that TDMA critics all-too-easily ignore.
And Nelson ignores AT&T's plans to offer circuit switched CDPD. and QCOMS plans to offer packet
switched data.
CDPD currently delivers data up to 19.2kbps, which is slightly faster than circuit-switched networks that
operate at 14.4kbps.
Hah! 19.2kbps raw data rate, in a lab. The payload data rate, after you strip out the headers used for packet
identification, error detection and correction, etc, is around 13kbps. (All packet based systems have this type
of overhead.)
And while AT&T's TDMA/CDPD networks can easily and cost-effectively be upgraded to EDGE, CDMA
carriers will
have to go through several upgrades, including scrapping their current circuit-switched networks, to get to
the same point.
The scrapping of networks is precisely what IS-136 operators will have to do.
The initial deployment of CDMA systems has apparently resulted in lower capacity than was hoped, even
though expectations have been ratcheted down significantly over time.
True enough, but a significant capacity gain was still acheived, and superior to IS-136 and GSM
Thus it has been critical to upgrade these systems-at
considerable expense-after only a few years of operation.
I don't recall IS-136 (or GSM) being immune to this problem either.
If history is the best indicator of the future, the claim of doubling the capacity of CDMA is likely to be
overly optimistic.
Is Nelson being subtle? Is he referring to doubling the capacity of 3G CDMA systems over extant CDAM
systems? He neglects to mention what gains EDGE will make over IS-136 (if it can be made to work.)
We note also that the brand of CDMA being pursued by Bell Atlantic and Sprint is radically different than
W-CDMA being considered by GSM operators for 3G services elsewhere in the world and may well leave
the CDMA community fractured.
The only thing that is fractured here is Nelson's logic. Earlier, he was insinuating that GSM operators were
going the EDGE route What's unique about EDGE is that it bridges two dominant wireless standards -
TDMA in the Western Hemisphere and GSM which is used throughout Europe and Asia - to provide
seamless 3G services over one compatible network. The Global CDMA community will be considerably less
fractured than, say, the TV community (NTSC in the US, PAL in the UK, SECAM in France etc.) or the
wireless community in Japan (PHS, PCS, PDC, etc)
Detailed analysis by multiple operators and vendors show that W-CDMA and EDGE offer similar data
capabilities and performance,
NO
but EDGE offers greater flexibility for deployment with limited initial spectral requirements.
NO
AT&T's strategy to deploy a 384kbps technology based on EDGE minimizes technology "whiplash" and
customer churn while aligning with the emerging dominant global standard.
NO!!! The detailed analysis consists of nothing more substantial than wishful thinking. How can EDGE, which
hasn't made it out of the lab, minimize technology whiplash (whatever that is). EDGE doesn't align with
WCDMA - the emerging dominant global standard, at all.
A clear distinction must be drawn between listening to the technologists and understanding the
technologies. The technologies, which in this case are the competing wireless standards, TDMA or CDMA,
are being enhanced with innovation in technology. Listening to the technologists can mislead you down the
wrong path. So while some analysts advance their own biased opinion, the true road to the Emerald
City begins with TDMA.
So why should we listen to you Rod Nelson? Aren't you a technologist? Or doesn't AT&T, your employer,
wish to soil itself by having a technologist as Chief Technology Officer? If you are a technologist, then you
must be misleading us. You said so yourself.
Gilder's often purple prose belies his alledged role as a technologist. He is first an foremost a commentator,
but I think he would make a better CTO than you!
wmolloy
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