Key Players Positioning>
From the Feb. 1, 1998 issue of Wireless Week
Key Players Forging The U.S. Positions On 3G
By Peggy Albright
As the wireless industry continues to play out the high-stakes debates over third-generation technology intellectual property
rights, the U.S. architects of 3G are doggedly hammering out positions on a host of critical issues to meet 1999 deadlines set by
the International Telecommunication Union.
The schedule has been relentlessly nonstop for about a year and "nothing but miserable deadline after miserable deadline," said
the FCC's Henry Straube, who chairs the U.S. Task Group 8/1 that manages the U.S. proposal process. Straube just finished
a marathon wrangling session, in which members consolidated 18 documents on radio air-interface technologies into 10. The
process took a full day meeting, seemingly endless telephone calls and culminated with a five-hour conference call on the eve of
the task group's deadline.
The U.S. Task Group 8/1 conducts the radio-related work on IMT-2000, functioning within the framework of its international
parent (ITU Task Group 8/1), which was charged by the ITU in 1985 to develop the IMT-2000. Network technologies are
developed separately through the ITU's telecommunications sector.
As taxing as the work has been, it's getting more intense. During the last few weeks of January alone, Task Group 8/1 members
prepared the U.S. documents identifying the key characteristics of the radio-transmission technologies proposed for
IMT-2000, including their radio-frequency and baseband parameters. They finalized the U.S. spectrum requirements for
IMT-2000 as well as language that will set the U.S. on course for discussing future U.S. spectrum needs at the World Radio
Conference 2000.
But task group assignments, once finished, don't stop there. After U.S. decisions are finalized by the task group members,
Straube sends the documents to the U.S. Radiocommunication Sector National Committee at the Department of State for
approval. The State Department then submits the documents as official U.S. positions to the destination organizations within the
ITU.
The U.S. Task Group 8/1 lists about 160 members who volunteer from all segments of industry and government to participate
in the process. Generally, 25 to 35 members attend any given meeting, and smaller numbers may participate in working or ad
hoc groups.
Resolving RTT issues
The process that receives the most attention, known as Working Group 5, is the one establishing U.S. positions on the
IMT-2000 radio air interface.
This is the most contentious of the U.S. groups because it includes industry members advocating 3G proposals that could
eventually compete against each other and because some members, such as Ericsson Inc. and Qualcomm Inc., are battling over
intellectual property rights to code division multiple access-based technologies.
The lead delegate on Working Group 5 issues for the United States is Ed Ehrlich, director of wireless standards at Nokia
Corp.
At press time, Working Group 5 expected National Committee approval of the January "key characteristics" documents in time
to attend a special technical meeting of the international counterparts in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, set for early February. There,
international delegates will finalize essential features of the RTT alternatives. They will then submit these choices to the next
international task group meeting, scheduled for March in Fortaleza, Brazil, where delegates will fine tune and approve key RTT
choices for the IMT-2000.
This is a "high-level decision making process," Ehrlich said. "The whole idea is that these key characteristics [finalized in Kuala
Lumpur] will have a major impact on the definition at a detailed level of the specification of the radio interface."
After that, experts will begin writing detailed technical specifications for submission to the ITU's Task Group 8/1 for approval at
year-end.
Spectrum requirements
Also within the last few weeks, U.S. Task Group 8/1 completed major steps toward the development of spectrum
requirements for the IMT-2000.
Conducted as Working Group 2 at the international level, spectrum work in the United States is handled in ad hoc and
subworking groups within the Task Group 8/1.
Jim Hoffmeier, a consultant representing BellSouth Cellular Corp., chairs a Task Group 8/1 ad hoc group that is developing the
U.S. recommendation for spectrum requirements for the IMT-2000 for both terrestrial and satellite system components.
At press time, this group was in Washington, D.C., completing the U.S. position, which also will be subject to approval at the
National Committee, for delivery to the March ITU meetings in Brazil. U.S. spectrum issues are handled at the international
level by Stephen Blust, also from BellSouth Cellular.
Hoffmeier said that one purpose of his group is to try "to put the U.S. perspective on what ultimately will be approved
internationally." He expected the United States to limit its request to 390 megahertz, which would add 200 megahertz above the
current 190 megahertz available here. He expects the European and Japanese representatives to the ITU will each push for
more than 530 megahertz, adding that the difference between the two expected requests "is going to need to get resolved at
that [March] meeting."
Working in tandem with Hoffmeier's team, another ad hoc group articulates the United States' longer-term spectrum needs for
IMT-2000.
Called the "ad hoc group on CPM 99, this group is chaired by Christine DiLapi, senior staff engineer in the government
relations office at Motorola Inc.
Its responsibility is to develop the U.S. contribution on IMT-2000 spectrum requirements, as well as needed frequency bands,
for a November 1999 international conference preparatory meeting in Geneva. The meeting will set the stage for spectrum
topics on the agenda at the World Radio Conference 2000.
"I think this will be one of the most important issues at the next WRC: how to provide spectrum for the IMT-2000," given that
the frequency bands suitable for mobile applications below 3 GHz are already heavily used, DiLapi said.
Fighting for spectrum
Another key segment of Task Group 8/1 is Working Group 3, which handles all satellite activity for the IMT-2000. This group
specified the U.S. satellite industry's spectrum requirements for the satellite component, for incorporation into the U.S. position
on spectrum requirements for IMT-2000 and for the CPM report.
Leading this work for the United States, at both the U.S. and ITU levels is Pascal LeMenn, manager of spectrum and
standards engineering at Globalstar LP. Part of the challenge from the satellite industry's point of view, LeMenn said, is that
because terrestrial systems need more spectrum, the process involves negotiating between terrestrial and satellite interests at
both the U.S. and international levels.
Already, he said, the U.S. satellite industry has determined it will need 2 by 68 megahertz additional spectrum in 2010 to
deliver IMT-2000 services, though only 2 by 20 megahertz are potentially available for the satellite component for IMT-2000
on a global basis.
"We are trying to prove we need more spectrum," he said.
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