(Pt.2)
qualityportfolio
6/7/00 10:59 am
At the IEC all day session on 3G wireless, here on Monday, with presenters from across the
industry--though no one from AT&T--1xrtt was universally assumed to be the next dominant
standard for North America. In Europe, some combination of GPRS and maybe EDGE was
assumed to be the next wave for existing networks, on current
spectrum.
But what about "real" 3G. That was the most interesting aspect of the session. Practically speaking
"real" 3G is understood largely to
be a debate between CDMA and...CDMA. Practically speaking, all the viable standards for 3G are
CDMA
based. Literally? No. Fig leaves are available for the easily embarrassed. But essentially. 1x, 3x,
wcdma, and some other variants are where the debate is.
In Europe, alas, the debate may be settled largely by bureaucrats. But "greenfield" 3G, i.e. new
networks on new dedicated 3G spectrum--dedicated by overactive EU types--will probably be
some
variety of WCDMA, though there are still other live proposals. And EDGE is still contemplated.
In the U.S., and the cleverer parts of Asia, there will be more diversity, but it will be CDMA, or in
the case of HDR, CDMA inspired and enabled diversity. (HDR runs, in part, on an ingenious time
division, intelligent queuing scheme, dependent on CDMA-derived power control ingenuity.) After
1x, says the consensus, may come
3x (which combines 3 standard 1.25 MHz CDMA channels), may come the addition of HDR, may
come a WCDMA variant, or, this being the good ole USA, land of the free, etc, whatever we d---
well please, including some combination of the above. The CDMA adopted for 3G in Europe--which
may be used by GSM carriers here--will be interoperable with CDMA One (IS95),CDMA 2000,
etc.
Let me re-emphasize, that this is my sense of conventional opinion,rather than my own, or GG's.
What seems crucial is that CDMA is
the center of such consensus as exists.
Two more points: As for EDGE itself, our skepticism about its ever becoming a serious contender
has a simple source. EDGE matches
straight up with HDR, the other significant data-only 3G candidate so far, and it loses. The data rates
do not compare. Say that to an EDGE guy and he'll start talking about conditions under which it
ramps up beyond 384 kbps, but those conditions turn out to be very,well, conditional. And it is very
hard to find anyone really committed to it. An Ericcson guy tried, but you could see his heart wasn't
in it.
Finally, one or two people in this forum may care about the investment side. Like what do the
CDMA variants mean for Qualcomm? Q is sure that license fees will be owed. Some of the folks Q
expects to be paid by may not agree, though others have
already conceded the point. The most likely answer is that Q will get paid if it prices reasonably.
Q will also make wcdma chipsets, but it may not have the learning curve advantages it has with
CDMA One, 2000, etc.
Oh, one final point, or actually prediction. After the GSM world has switched over to its CDMA,
and IS36 TDMA has disappeared from the face of the earth, making CDMA practically speaking a
universal standard, the GSM countries will still call it something else, like UMTS, or GSM3G, or
whatever, and there will still be clueless
articles written about how CDMA is bucking a worldwide trend, and the US better wake up or find
itself in technological isolation.
RV
Q Rocket |
