I've got to admit, that was a nice post. I still have a couple of points to make, however.
My point and contention all along has been that WCDMA is a new technology. Period.
Perhaps, but I think that the difficulties won't necessarily be as severe as they were for IS/95. As I said before, the initial IS/95 implementations were the first time that a spread spectrum architecture was use for the commercial deployment of mobile wireless services. Those working with W-CDMA, on the other hand, can use the IS/95 implementations as a reference. Yes, I know, there's plenty of huge differences between cdma2000 and W-CDMA (1.25 Mhz. carriers vs. 5 Mhz. carrier, many others). However, as we all know, these guys are lying when they state that they didn't use a whole lot of Qualcomm's IPR when designing the technology. They used it wholesale (http://www.itu.int/imt/2-radio-dev/proposals/j/j.pdf). Thus, having firsthand knowledge of how Qualcomm and its partners have implemented CDMA in the past, and utilizing many of the same techniques, these guys have at least some of their work already done beforehand, even if there's other things that they have to work on.
We started the CDMA development in 1989...IT TOOK 5 1/2 YEARS TO ROLL IT OUT WHERE IT WAS EVEN RUNNING IN THE FIRST LARGE SCALE SYSTEM.
Work on W-CDMA was started in 1993 by DoCoMo. Soon afterwards, Nokia and Ericsson got involved. The UMTS forum was established in 1996. In January 1998, UMTS-UTRA was ratified by ETSI as their 3rd-generation mobile platform of choice. To make it short, work on W-CDMA has been going on for quite a while. It's not a last-minute, last-ditch effort on the part of DoCoMo and the GSM camp to create a respectable 3G platform. As we know, trials have also been going on for quite a while.
Now my point on WCDMA is that if they intend to roll out the technology, they had better get on with it ASAP. It is not that it will not work, there are facets of it which are new and diffacult to implement. Not impossible, but harder than CDMA2000. So until they field a few large systems, they cannot figure out all the problems with soft handoff, power control, large systems problems, etc. This takes time. It takes like 3-4 years...My main point is and will be that until they show up with working chipsets and working handsets, they still have at least 3 years to get a system running.
I'm a little confused about your comments regarding "large systems." Are you talking about commercial networks going up? It seems that it didn't take this long for the Koreans to deploy on a large scale after their initial rollouts. Also, with regards to chipsets, Qualcomm released the MSM5000 for sampling and testing on February 1 of this year, and now, just eight months later, Samsung already has 1x handsets out, which are being used in SK Telecom's initial 1x deployment. While it's true that W-CDMA's a new technology while 1xMC is merely an IS/95 upgrade, it seems that if the chipsets are good, the delay might not be that long. I agree that DoCoMo may end up having to push back its rollouts a couple of months, but I can't see huge delays because of this.
One other thing to keep in mind here is that Nokia, Ericsson, NEC, and a number of others are doing in-house W-CDMA chip development. This means that they won't be issuing press releases regarding when their chips are available, working, etc. The only press releases that'll come from them will be released when they have W-CDMA handsets available. For all that we know, one or more of these companies may have W-CDMA chipsets that are already developed.
Lastly, before I forget, Infineon has already begun sampling its W-CDMA ASIC (yes, I know, they'll need a license to sell it...):
infineon.com
Also, to get a better idea regarding the time and effort that just one company has been putting into the project, this Infineon press release might be of use:
infineon.com
From the press release:
“We have been working closely with the University of Linz since 1998 and this collaboration has enabled us to develop the first prototype chips using the UMTS standard for the next generation of mobile phones.”
Collaborative efforts have been very successful. One year after joint development began, the first prototype chip – a complete superheterodyne receiver of more than 4,000 components with a chip area of just 2.44 mm by 3.01 mm – was manufactured in Munich. In April 2000, the first chip for the Japanese UMTS market was produced, featuring a fully integrated UMTS superheterodyne transceiver.
Anyway, my guess is that DoCoMo's initial rollouts will mostly be a trial, and I'm not looking for major W-CDMA rollouts to begin taking place until early 2002, perhaps late 2001 at the earliest. In other words, 12-18 months from now. Considering the strong ties DoCoMo has with numerous other operators, and considering DoCoMo's own personal incentive to push the W-CDMA standard, I wouldn't be surprised to see a number of GSM operators sending people over to Japan to see how DoCoMo's rollouts progress in order to make sure that they don't experience any of the problems that DoCoMo might have. In this sense, DoCoMo's trial should act as a test bed for virtually all future rollouts, and could help things out considerably when compared to situation where everyone starts rolling out W-CDMA at the same time, without being able to see some real-world operation take place in advance (save for trials).
To sum everything up, with all the work that's been done with regards to developing the W-CDMA standard over the past several years, with the billions of dollars that have gone into R&D, and with so many of the wireless industry's giants having been involved in the effort, and assuming that Infineon's efforts on the chipset side have been replicated by others, I still think that any problems experienced with W-CDMA deployments early on should be short-term, and not affect the rollout dates significantly. Once again, feel free to disagree with me.
Eric
PS - FaultLine, yes, it would be better for Qualcomm if the entire world went for cdma2000, but it's just not going to happen, for a number of reasons that have been well-documented. There's nothing else that I can say. Nonetheless, I expect that the profits generated by W-CDMA deployments will leave very few people upset at the state of Qualcomm's bottom line within a couple of years.
PPS - Just remember, Japan Telecom, a carrier with only a subscriber base that's only a fraction of the size of the one that DoCoMo possesses, is expecting 600,000 W-CDMA subscribers within one district within their first year of rollouts. It still seems that DoCoMo's trying its best to downplay the hype, which might be a good idea if their spring/summer 2001 rollout is only a trial. |
