SINGAPORE-The International Telecommunication Union has some difficult work ahead of it to harmonize the various third-generation proposals standards bodies around the world will submit by tomorrow.
While most of the world’s standards bodies and individual groups of companies diligently tried to hammer out the differences between wideband Code Division Multiple Access and W-cdmaOne, both proposals will end up being separately submitted to the ITU. The ITU has set a March deadline to reach a consensus and harmonize as many proposals as possible into one standard.
“We don’t know all of the proposals that will come in by June 30,” said Michael Callendar, chairman of the ITU-R Task Group 8/1 last week at the CDG World Congress in Singapore. “Hints are that there will be some surprises coming in.” The United States is likely to submit four proposals, including W-CDMA based on the Global System for Mobile communications platform and W-cdmaOne, an evolution of existing cdmaOne systems. Japan plans to submit W-CDMA, but is leaving the door open for further discussion to converge with W-cdmaOne. Korea is submitting both W-CDMA and W-cdmaOne. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute has chosen W-CDMA for mobile applications and a TD-CDMA solution for low-mobility applications. It has refused any dialogue with the Telecommunications Industry Association or others on the matter of convergence.
CdmaOne champion Qualcomm Inc. has notified ETSI that it holds key patents to W-CDMA technology and will not license them unless convergence is achieved.
Even with the June 30 deadline, the debates and attempted consensus-building that already extensively has taken place across the industry most likely will continue.
The cdmaOne camp and many in the GSM community remain deeply divided over technical issues such as chip rate and synchronization. Even some division exists within the cdmaOne community.
“It gets tougher every day to get to harmonization,” said Steven Goreham, director of standards and third-generation business development with Motorola Inc.’s Cellular Infrastructure Group. “I don’t see it happening.”
AirTouch Communications Inc., a global operator with interests in the United States, Japan and Europe, has twice invited wireless carriers and vendors during the last several months to discuss convergence.
“The chip rate is a symptom of a competitive issue, and that shouldn’t be the case,” said Craig Farrill, vice president and strategic technology officer at AirTouch. “Some carriers feel disadvantaged by certain chip rates.”
Ironically, just as L.M. Ericsson argued in the early 1990s that CDMA technology would never work in the form Qualcomm developed, Qualcomm’s Andrew Viterbi claimed last week that GSM-based W-CDMA technology would have a hard time working commercially. Qualcomm and the CDG charge W-CDMA was developed purposely to be incompatible with cdmaOne technology.
Sweden-based Ericsson is a key player in the debate. European GSM carriers are loyal to the vendor, and so far, the company has refused to consider convergence. Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo, which plans to be the first operator to deploy a third-generation network, has aligned itself with Ericsson and the GSM MoU Association.
Sources close to Ericsson say the company won’t consider changing any of the technical differences unless Qualcomm gives them the licenses for free or at a considerably lower price than Qualcomm charges today. Ericsson is the only major vendor that has not licensed cdmaOne technology, and has complained royalty fees are too high.
Combating arguments that Qualcomm squeezes the cdmaOne market with its intellectual property rights fees, the company displayed charts that said only 7 percent of its revenues in 1997 came from royalties.
“More than 60 licensees proves Qualcomm is fair in terms of licensing,” said Viterbi.
Qualcomm has made it clear it will not grant its intellectual property rights unless the W-CDMA proposal is converged with cdmaOne. That has concerned some in the industry. The ITU must reach a proposal free of any IPR issues.
“It’s a wild-card situation. Qualcomm has taken a position that is not something traditionally done in the industry. I’m not sure what the ITU will do. It’s a negative threat,” said one industry executive.
“We don’t want an IPR battle. We’re trying now to prevent an ugly situation,” said Farrill. “Bickering and lawsuits will only cause the consumers to lose.”
Farrill said the carrier community isn’t focused on third-generation technology as much as vendors, which are worried about future market share. Carriers are concentrating on day-to-day business and competitive issues, he said.
ITU’s Callendar encouraged carriers to become involved in the standards process saying, “If you want convergence to happen, you have to tell us … You are the industry.”
