This news release makes it sound as if nearly all US and Asian equipment supplliers back convergence. Based on this article, it appears Qualcomm is in the drivers seat. Any comments would be appreciated.
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FEATURE-Global mobile phone war heats up
By Suzanne McElligott
SINGAPORE, July 16 (Reuters) - A battle for world supremacy in mobile telephone technology is heating up.
On one side is CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), comprising big U.S. and Asian telecommunications companies. On the other is the European-based GSM (Global System for Mobile Telecommunications) group.
The CDMA Development Group (CDG), comprising 100 companies including Lucent Technologies <LU.N>, Motorola <MOT.N> and Qualcomm <QCOM.O>, says its technology has superior voice quality, increased base station capacity and unequalled coverage.
It accuses the Europeans of unfair trade by essentially stopping commercial CMDA technology from entering Europe and trying to tweak future "third generation" mobile telecommunications standards, to put current CDMA operators at a disadvantage.
NEW GLOBAL STANDARD BASED ON CDMA
Global telecommunication standards bodies are working on the technical parameters for mobile phone systems the industry should aim to deploy within the next two to three years.
They have already decided on CDMA as the technology to base standards on, but the CDG says the Europeans are lobbying to adjust those standards so that existing CDMA system operators would be disadvantaged.
The real battle is being waged, not only for CDMA to gain market share in Europe, but to make sure CDMA operators get a fair shot at prize markets in telecommunications -- in the developing world.
"The question is what will hundreds of millions of people in China use," Reed Hundt, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), told reporters at the recent CDMA World Congress in Singapore.
Many of those in the CDMA camp say Asia, despite its economic crisis, is still the place to invest as only one third of the region's population has ever used a phone.
Hundt told one audience that more telephone revenue was generated in Singapore, population 3.5 million, than in India, population 980 million.
Scott Erickson of Lucent Technologies said GSM "had systems in commercial operation almost a good five years before we did for CDMA, which is why even in the Asian markets out here you have many more GSM system currently deployed than CDMA."
"However, the number of CDMA networks that have been deployed and commercialised within the last year in Asia has shown that CDMA has grown much more rapidly by a factor of three than the first GSM systems deployed."
The world's first CDMA system started up in Hong Kong in 1995 and there are now 12 million subscribers to such systems, 75 percent of them in Asia.
That figure should be 18 million by the end of the year, said Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDG.
There are an estimated 200 million wireless subscribers in the world, 80 to 85 million of whom use GSM, a spokeswoman for telecoms group Ericsson <LMEb.ST> in Singapore said. There are also other, older technologies in the world besides GSM and CDMA.
In Singapore, GSM systems have an 89 percent market share, a figure likely to drop to 80 percent by 2002 as CDMA subscribers grow, Alan Wee of Pyramid Research in Singapore told Reuters.
CDMA LAUNCHES FIGHT IN SINGAPORE
CDMA technology was launched in Singapore in June, so market penetration now is negligible, but growing as an advertising campaign promotes it.
To garner market share, MobileOne, the GSM and CDMA operator, is offering CDMA services at lower rates.
CDMA services are generally offered more cheaply than GSM because most of the CDMA roaming agreements between operators and countries have yet to be established. GSM operators who already have roaming agreements in place.
In Southeast Asia, Singapore has by far the most mobile phones per capita and statistics from Pyramid Research show that around half of the population will subscribe to mobile phone services by 2001.
CHINA IS THE PRIZE
The prize in Asia is, of course, China, population 1.2 billion. Both systems have made inroads with the first CDMA system deployed in China last month by South Korea's Samsung Electronics <05930.KS> in the Shanghai area.
According to official agencies, China is expected to invest around $7.2 billion in mobile telecommunications in 1998.
There are now around 17.8 million mobile phone subscribers and 10 million more are expected to sign up in the next three years.
Craig Irvine, analyst at Merrill Lynch in Singapore, said half the populations of Hong Kong and Singapore will use mobile phones by 2003, two years ahead of Britain.
"Small places can put up quality networks for entire populations with relative ease and Asian subscribers were generally more receptive to using a portable phone in public than in the U.S. or Europe," he said.
Wee said Asia's crisis would dampen growth. But if additional licences are awarded as planned, the effects should be offset by competition between a host of new mobile phone operators. Expected lower prices and better service would fuel growth.
00:42 07-16-98
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Michael |
