LOS ANGELES-Bell Atlantic Mobile announced it will begin phased introduction of high-speed wireless data capabilities over its existing cdmaOne network in 1999.
The next-generation wireless services are based on cdma2000 third-generation enhancements provided by Lucent Technologies Inc.
“With Lucent as our technology partner, we intend to make the most of our investment to enhance the quality, reliability and data-carrying capability of our DigitalChoice cdmaOne service,” said Ted Hoffman, vice president of technology development with BAM. “Together, we will bring these services to market on today’s commercial platforms, not tomorrow’s experimental systems.”
BAM is the second U.S. operator to announce aggressive plans to implement 3G services. Sprint PCS announced plans to offer advanced services earlier this year.
Code Division Multiple Access operators have been quiet in recent months, trying to hammer out a compromise with wideband-CDMA backers. W-CDMA technology, based on the Global System for Mobile communications platform, is incompatible with cdma2000 technology.
Frustrated by the lack of cooperation over convergence of the two technologies, cdmaOne operators have opted to push ahead with the cdma2000 proposal.
As part of this, the CDMA Development Group said its phase one specification, called 1XRTT, is almost complete in the standards process. The specification is set to be published in the first quarter of next year and will enable 144 kilobits per second packet data in a mobile environment and higher speeds in a fixed environment.
The 1X phase uses a 1.25 megahertz channel, rather than a 5 megahertz channel. This means existing cdmaOne operators will not need more spectrum to implement these features. Features of the standard include a twofold increase in voice capacity and standby time, more than 300 kbps data capability, advanced packet data services and longer battery life.
