The campaigning efforts in Washington, D.C., are set to heat up within the next few months as the International Telecommunication Union enters the decision-making process for third-generation technology.
The CDMA Development Group’s operator members recently submitted a letter to 21 key government officials stressing the importance of harmonization for 3G technologies, in particular wideband Code Division Multiple Access based on the GSM platform and cdma2000, based on Interim Standard-95 technology, because the two proposals are similar technically and provide no basis for competitive differentiation.
“There’s no way you’re going to get the IS-136 proposal and the CDMA proposals to converge,” said Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDG. “We’re not calling on the government to select a standard. We’re asking them to stress the need for convergence.”
LaForge said Chinese and Japanese officials are asking the CDG why the United States can’t seem to converge the two CDMA proposals. The United States has three separate submissions to the ITU-UWC-136, W-CDMA and cdma2000. The ITU is in charge of coordinating a process to identify a family of 3G systems to allow for high-speed data and Internet access, full-motion video and other sophisticated multimedia services.
The CDG is trying to move the debate on Capitol Hill away from the vendors. Time Division Multiple Access and Global System for Mobile communications carriers claim Qualcomm Inc. has been spending large amounts of money trying to deny their technology choices and position the 3G issue as a trade-war issue with Europe, which has resisted converging its chosen W-CDMA proposal with the cdma2000 proposal.
“There has been a lot of misinformation coming out about Qualcomm and CDMA proponents in general,” said LaForge. “We wanted to make it clear that CDMA operators are really thinking about convergence … This is not a manufacturer issue.”
Meanwhile, the GSM North American Alliance and the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium have joined forces to provide a unified lobbying force on Capitol Hill and collaborate on technical issues.
“Competing TDMA and GSM manufacturers and operators today come together and make it very clear: we support multiple 3G standards,” Don Warkentin, chairman of the GSM Alliance and president and chief executive officer of Aerial Communications Inc., said at PCS ’98. “Efforts by other groups to artificially constrain the marketplace to one single standard are not in the best interests of the consumer.”
The UWCC has been conspicuously quiet since it was formed in 1996 compared with the high-profile lobbying and media campaigns of the CDG and the GSM Alliance. UWCC has since hired an outside attorney and a lobbyist to make sure the government allows carriers to have a choice in choosing a 3G technology. The group is increasing its budget and IS-136 members have agreed to contribute more.
“The position UWCC wants to get across with its new efforts is that it supports the concept of a family of standards,” said Greg Williams UWCC chairman and vice president of wireless systems with SBC Communications Inc. “We believe in multiple technologies, [and] we believe that countries should not restrict the technologies to be used in any given spectrum.”
Confusion seems to exist around what a family of standards or systems means. The two concepts seem to be used interchangeably. Michael Callendar, chairman of the ITU-R Task Group 8/1, responsible for the radio aspects of International Mobile Telecommunications-2000, noted the ITU is attempting to develop a flexible standard for wireless access to global telecommunications infrastructure that will serve both mobile and fixed users in both public and private networks. The desire for flexibility has resulted in the ITU’s family of systems concept, one that has been widely misinterpreted, according Callendar.
“The family of systems concept originated from the network side,” he said. “Because of the dollars invested, it is sensible to allow networks to evolve. The family concept was never intended to apply to the air interface.”
It’s clear at this point that the GSM Alliance and the UWCC have no plans to collaborate on the network side. The two groups, along with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, have agreed on a common next-generation technical standard for high-speed modulation air interface to support high-speed data and high-speed packet data architecture. These standards will provide a migration path to third-generation technology.
“There continues to be a lot of confusion about what the family of standards discussion is all about,” said Leo Nikkari, vice president of programs and strategy with UWCC. “What we’re trying to be clear on is that it makes a lot of sense for us to look at convergence of general TDMA technologies, in particular for higher speed data. At this juncture, we are building a common overlay product with the intention of going to a common air interface speed … ANSI-41 and GSM MAP are not the same architecture. They are not designed to work together.”
The CDG said it supports a family of systems concept, under which the ANSI-41 platform and the GSM MAP platform would be merged to allow for global roaming.
TDMA operator SBC Communications Inc., which also owns GSM operator Pacific Bell Wireless, says it has a protocol converter in its network to convert from ANSI-41 to the GSM MAP platform.
Stuart Sharrock contributed to this article.
