re: Wireless Week on EDGE
It is ironic that on the same day that Loverly Lynette Looney the CDG Stooge, wrote her obituary of EDGE, Cahners "Wireless Week" published an article by Peggy Albright with a decidedly different spin on EDGE:
>> Advocates Say EDGE Is Alive And Kicking
Peggy Albright
August 13, 2001
Wireless Week
For months, EDGE technology advocates have suffered through the surreal experience of reading obituaries for a technology they believe still is very much alive.
In the past year, some industry analysts - as well as those companies with competing business interests - have claimed with such regularity that EDGE was dead that many assume the third-generation technology already is resting six feet under.
The reasons most frequently cited include the following: EDGE is more complicated than it appears and will require multiple modifications to base station subsystems, which will increase costs; EDGE functions in parallel to its associated GPRS and wideband-CDMA networks and thus takes customers off those systems; EDGE customers will need tri-mode phones that are not yet proven and are likely to be costly.
Now, however, with both GPRS and W-CDMA showing their own technical weaknesses, EDGE is gaining some reconsideration. "We are more bullish on the technology than we were before," says Christine Loredo, an analyst at the Strategis Group, who also cautions that EDGE may not be immune from technical problems.
The Strategis Group bases its current EDGE perspective on market considerations. In Europe, for example, operators that did not win 3G spectrum or couldn't afford to bid may find that EDGE offers a sensible way to offer services that will compete with W-CDMA, Loredo suggests.
The financial burdens that many European 3G licensees face also may give new impetus to EDGE, she says. While the technology is not exactly cheap, it is less expensive than W-CDMA, and operators may find their cost-benefit analyses favor using EDGE in rural or suburban areas where they don't need as much data capacity as they would in the densely populated or business-focused urban areas that will require W-CDMA.
There is one caveat to the research firm's forecasts: "Our assumptions are that equipment is developed and handsets are created," Loredo says.
AT&T Wireless and its vendors say they expect EDGE equipment will be ready when needed, although as with all new technology evolutions, infrastructure comes first, handsets second.
So far, no company has announced commitments to produce EDGE handsets, which some interpret as a lack of support for the technology. "We don't have [EDGE] in our roadmap at all," says Barney Dewey, an analyst at Andrew Seybold's Outlook4Mobility. Nor has his firm found any real evidence the technology will actually find users. "It's all talk and no action," he says.
AT&T Wireless, the first operator to launch GPRS commercially in the United States, insists it is on the path to deploy EDGE in the United States via its new GSM overlay, which it currently is installing on its 1900 MHz spectrum.
Cingular Wireless, which just weeks ago suggested a timeline for EDGE deployments, now is keeping its plans under wraps. "At this time, we can't comment on our EDGE activities," says company spokesman Peter Nilsson.
AT&T Wireless may find it easier than Cingular to endorse the technology because AT&T Wireless has 1900 MHz spectrum and can buy popular GSM and GPRS equipment that already exists for those frequencies.
Cingular, while operating some 1900 MHz GSM properties that are now running GPRS, is largely a TDMA carrier operating on spectrum in the 800 MHz band. GSM equipment vendors have not served the 800 MHz frequencies until this year, which makes this, too, a new technology.
Leading vendors are trying to accelerate 850 MHz GSM equipment's move to market, however. Nokia and Motorola, for example, touted results of live calls over test networks in recent weeks.
AT&T Wireless, using its 1900 MHz time-to-market advantage, already is building its nationwide GSM-GPRS overlay. The carrier plans to cover all of its markets with the two technologies by the end of 2002 and will begin the EDGE rollout somewhat sooner, in the second half of next year.
Jim Grams, senior vice president for multimedia networks and systems at AT&T Wireless, says its radio equipment vendors - Ericsson, Lucent and Nokia - have committed to deliver EDGE to the operator next year. Both Nokia and Ericsson say they'll have the software ready in the first half of the year. Ericsson will offer EDGE for its RBS2000 line of base station equipment; Nokia will offer the software for its UltraSite base stations.
In each case, Grams says, it will require only software upgrades to the equipment AT&T Wireless currently is installing.
The vendors offer another reason for advocating EDGE: GPRS is limited without it, and EDGE should triple the capacity of GPRS systems. While GPRS and EDGE are data-only technologies, the expected introduction of voice-over-Internet protocol technologies will make both options more attractive, they say.
Nevertheless, assuming the technology moves forward as planned, the nagging issue of handset development still exists. Until such devices appear on product roadmaps, enthusiasm for EDGE will not pick up. "I think it will resurrect itself when you get somebody committed to terminals," says Lars Nilsson, manager of strategic marketing at Ericsson.
In other words, support for EDGE is not completely alive, but the technology's not dead yet, either.
EDGE Supporters
To date, only a handful of companies have announced support for or commitments to deploy EDGE, but that soon may change. "I would expect many more announcements over the next five months," says Chris Pearson, executive vice president of the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium. "Obviously, the UWCC is very bullish on the prospects for EDGE."
Carriers Committed To EDGE
* AT&T Wireless (USA)
* Telcel Radiomovil (Mexico)
* C&W Optus (Australia)
* Rogers Wireless (Canada)
* Telecom Personal (Argentina)
* Entel Movil (Bolivia)
Vendors Supporting EDGE
* Alcatel
* AirNet Communications
* Ericsson
* Lucent
* Motorola
* Nokia
* Nortel
* Siemens AG
Source: The Universal Wireless Communications Consortium <<
Lynette's "sources close to" view here:
industryclick.com
- Eric - |
