Last Paragragh " Very Unusally Phrased? >
P E R S O N A L C O M M U N I C A T I O N S
A full-blown debate?
As the huffing and puffing surrounding the 3G mobile standards
issues continues unabated, Guy Daniels reports from the PCS
98 conference in Florida, where, despite the vendors' best
efforts, the focus remained firmly on 2G systems
A packed auditorium at the opening session of
PCS 98, the wireless conference and exhibition
held in Orlando, Florida in September, was
denied the chance to witness a full-blown
debate on the third-generation radio
transmission technology (RTT) issue. With the
stage shared by Qualcomm, Ericsson,
Motorola, Lucent and Nortel, Jay Kitchen,
president of the Personal Communications
Industry Association (PCIA) - the organisers of
PCS -instead concentrated on promoting his
'let's play catch-up' lobbying document, Agenda for a Wireless America.
Perhaps it was the presence of William Kennard, FCC chairman, who delivered
the keynote address, that reduced Kitchen's trademark roar to pussy-cat purrs.
"I was going to bring up the air interface," Kitchen said apologetically to the
audience, "but I thought it might turn this into the Jerry Springer Show!"
Keeping abreast of developments in the third-generation mobile standards race is
no mean feat. As we predicted in last issue's cover story, the organisations
behind the various RTT proposals are already repositioning and realigning
themselves.
The nine RTT proposals for terrestrial 3G systems (excluding the DECT entry)
submitted to the ITU earlier this year have already been reduced to eight. Five of
these proposals are based around the wideband CDMA (W-CDMA)
technology, and as such there is still the opportunity to harmonise them into one
single standard.
Modest proposals
It was announced at the PCS conference that the Telecommunications Industry
Association (TIA) and the Accredited Standards Committee (T1), both of the
US, have agreed to merge their proposals to form a single submission. The
North American W-CDMA (NA:W-CDMA) and wireless multimedia and
messaging services W-CDMA (WIMS W-CDMA) proposals have therefore
now been replaced with the single wideband packet CDMA (WP-CDMA)
proposal.
"This step taken by these US standards groups marks the first attempt to
harmonise the proposed RTTs," said Jesse Russell, chairman of the TIA 3G ad
hoc group. "It reflects the focus of our effort that, ideally, 3G radio specifications
should be capable of handling packet data with great efficiency; should recognise
the data-centric nature of our future networks; and should greatly simplify the
process of global roaming for American travellers."
He is overly optimistic on the last point. At present there are still two other North
American RTT proposals tabled at the ITU.
The NA:W-CDMA proposal was formulated by the North American GSM
Alliance, a regional interest group of one Canadian and 12 US GSM operators,
which was then endorsed by the T1P1 standards group.
The WIMS W-CDMA proposal was devised by a group of US manufacturers,
comprising AT&T Wireless Labs, Hughes Network Systems, InterDigital
Communications, OKI America and GoldenBridge Technologies.
The two proposals share four key requirements: 4.096mcps chip rate, 10ms
frame length, support for adaptive rate vocoders and asynchronous base
stations. The new combined proposal will feature the use of multiple parallel
orthogonal codes for higher data rates, and a new pilot/header structure to
enable rapid packet acquisition and release.
"This harmonic alignment improves an already superior W-CDMA technology
by incorporating the best aspects of both proposals," said Don Warkentin,
chairman of the North American GSM Alliance. And he couldn't resist the
obligatory dig at the cdmaOne/ cdma2000 camp: "The gains achieved from this
alignment would be lost if the proposal was artificially forced to support legacy
systems."
Attempting to wrestle the mantle of 'leading US proposal' away from the
cdma2000 RTT proposal, Brian Kiernan, senior vice president of InterDigital,
declared: "This merger strengthens the United States' position in the international
standards-setting process."
Making friends
Not content with merging its RTT proposal with that of the WIMS group, the
North American GSM Alliance has also sealed a relationship with the IS136
TDMA community. It has announced that it will work with the Universal
Wireless Communications Consortium (UWCC) to ensure that all new wireless
technologies are made available to US consumers.
This is another effort to take the spotlight away from the CDMA Development
Group (CDG) and the belief that the CDG-championed cdma2000 RTT
proposal is the only credible ITU submission from the US mobile industry.
"Efforts by other groups to artificially constrain the marketplace to one single
standard are not in the best interests of the consumer," said Warkentin.
The UWCC had already recognised the importance of working with the GSM
community, and announced earlier this year that its high-speed data evolution
would be compatible with EDGE, the enhanced GSM standard, signifying a
move away from the disappointing cellular digital packet data networks.
"This effort was led by the TDMA and GSM operator community to provide a
significant first step in achieving global TDMA radio interface convergence," said
Greg Williams, chairman of the UWCC. Qualcomm chairman and cdma2000
proponent Irwin Jacobs was, not surprisingly, unimpressed. "I'm not sure it
affects the larger picture," he told the assembled press corps at PCS.
As mentioned in our last issue, Qualcomm's higher-than-par intellectual property
right (IPR) royalty rates continue to be an issue. Jacobs indicated that he would
be prepared to re-examine those rates if CDMA technology becomes a world
standard, but he was rather short on the details. "There is an effort to hold down
more inflammatory remarks in public," said Jacobs, with not the slightest hint of
hypocrisy.
Since PCS 98, Qualcomm has submitted a letter to the ITU declaring that it has
(alleged) essential IPRs for 'several 3G RTT proposals based on CDMA
technology'. Regurgitating its earlier letter to ETSI, it stated that it would be
willing to license its IPR to the cdma2000 proposal on a non-discriminatory
basis, on reasonable terms in accordance with the ITU's patent policy. However,
Qualcomm categorically confirmed that it is unwilling to license its IPR for ETSI's
W-CDMA proposal, as well as the three 'derivative' RTTs from Japan's ARIB
and Korea's TTA and the W-CDMA/NA:W-CDMA proposal from the US
T1P1 committee.
Qualcomm stated that it will notify the ITU of its IPR position towards the other
RTT proposals at a later time. It also harped on relentlessly about its three
'fairness principles' (see CI October 98), which are too ridiculously irrelevant to
repeat here.
C O M M U N I C A T I O N S©
I N T E R N A T I O N A L |
