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Mobile industry unites for battle over spectrum.
By Joanne Taaffe - Forteleza, Brazil.
05 April 1999
The ITU may have failed in its bid to oversee the setting of a single
air interface standard for third-generation networks at the IMT-2000
meeting in Brazil last month. But the resulting fallout overshadowed one
significant success - an unexpected agreement between all regions to push
for an additional 160 megahertz of spectrum for third-generation wireless
services by 2010.
It was a defining moment for government regulators, operators and
manufacturers from Asia, Europe and the Americas. With such overwhelming
consensus the industry is now armed with a clear and powerful negotiating
position to go to the World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC 2000)
next year, where spectrum is carved up.
There, the mobile industry will face stiff competition from the military
and the broadcasting industries in a battle for increasingly scarce
spectrum, according to Fabio Leite, counselor IMT-2000, at the
International Telecommunication Union, who was present at the meeting in
Brazil.
"We are prepared to go to the (WARC) conference with a lot of lobbying,"
said Leite.
Prior to the meeting the ITU was "afraid that a big difference in
requirements in different parts of the world would make a common
requirement impossible," said Leite. "The fact that there are experts
proposing this has a big influence with governments," he added.
The ITU was particularly concerned that the United States would resist
calls to set aside such a large slice of spectrum for third-generation
mobile services. But its stamp of approval for the 1600-Mhz benchmark
gives the ITU further ammunition. "Of the governments, the most
influential is the U.S ... they're the biggest users of any kind of
spectrum."
The ITU convenes WARC, which regulates radio frequencies for use by
television and radio broadcasting, telecommunications, navigation,
maritime and aeronautical communications, and satellite broadcasting.
Because of the uneven development of mobile across the world so far,
different regions currently have varying amounts of spectrum allotted: 395
Mhz to Europe; 230 Mhz to the Americas; and 320 Mhz to Asia.
But using calculations based on population density and likely network
architecture and design, each region calculated the extra spectrum
required would be 160 Mhz.
The unexpected degree of consensus was welcomed by Stephen Blust, senior
manager, strategic technologies, at U.S. regional operator BellSouth
Corp., who led the working group on spectrum allocation at the
meeting.
"The fact that we came up with three numbers that are common ... (shows
that) ... we came up with a common global perspective. The emerging market
is very much a global market, no (one) region is not going to be
important," said Blust.
But not everyone agrees. David Court, director of Dublin-based consultancy
Connogue Ltd., said the numbers are contrived and based on ITU diplomacy
rather than hard math. But Court does concur that the figures reflect an
industry-wide agreement on the rate of development of high-speed Internet
services over wireless, and expected synergies between broadcasting and
wireless telecoms.
The ITU warns that the mobile industry faces stiff competition for
spectrum from both military users and the broadcasting industry at the
WARC 2000 meeting to be held next year in Istanbul. But the participation
of U.S. and European regulators at the ITU talks suggests that these
countries are minded to accept 3G demands, said Court.
There is no guarantee, however, that the ITU will achieve its goal of
acquiring a large block of spectrum in the same frequency worldwide.
"They're asking for quite a lot (of spectrum) and different countries use
spectrum for different things. They may be given that amount in different
wavelengths, but are fairly comfortable in getting it," said Joseph
Gordon, analyst with the Cambridge, England-based research company
Analysys Ltd.
The argument for wishing to restrict the use of certain frequencies to
UMTS is to further increase compatibility between networks worldwide, said
the ITU's Leite. Connogue's Court added that "anything that makes the
system more economical for operators and users is useful."
A RESOLUTION TOO LATE
After years of wrangling, the decision by L.M. Ericsson AB and Qualcomm
Inc. to cross-license patents and break the long stalemate over
third-generation network standards came just four days days too late for
the ITU meeting in Forteleza last month.
Until hours before the meeting in Brazil the ITU was gathering proposals,
hoping to broker a unified approach on air-interfaces. It was not to
be.
The outcome may have been different if the ITU had known about the
Ericsson and Qualcomm agreement in advance. Instead the ITU "knew they
(Ericsson and Qualcomm) were at the point of concluding a major agreement,
but we were not informed officially ... (so) ... during the meeting we
didn't include any specifics," said the ITU's Fabio Leite.
Consequently the meeting effectively fudged the issue, devising a standard
that allows the use of multiple access methods including CDMA, TDMA and
combined TDMA/CDMA - or effectively three standards, as Pierre Delmont,
strategy manager for France Telecom Mobile puts it.
"The (3G standards) paper was just one big basket ... they made an
inventory of all the technical parameters, after you can do anything you
want," said Delmont.
Now that Ericsson and Qualcomm have resolved their dispute the ITU hopes
for further harmonization between the standards before IMT-2000 meetings
scheduled for the end of May and the end of October in Finland.
"There isn't a strong likelihood of uniform standards everywhere because
legacy systems still need to be supported," said Peter Richardson,
principal analyst at Dataquest Inc., the research arm of the Gartner
Group.
Even if the industry fails to find a single standard, operators and
manufacturers were unanimous in expressing relief that the IPR dispute is
over. "The Ericsson and Qualcomm standoff put anyone investing at some
risk. We're glad the issue is now dead," said Doug McGregor at Nortel
Networks. |
