WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commissioner Susan Ness last week added her voice to
the growing drumbeat of U.S. opposition to European Union moves that could block the import of third-generation
mobile phone technologies and limit harmonization of similar standards.
“A major concern I share with other
U.S. government policy makers is that if the EU sanctions a single standard adopted by
ETSI (European
Telecommunications Standards Institute), wireless consumers may be the losers in the end,” said Ness in
prepared remarks for delivery before the European Institute here last Tuesday.
With many billions of export dollars
at stake, tensions are running high as the International Telecommunication Union approaches a self-imposed March
deadline for ruling on 15 proposed 3G mobile phone standards from around the world.
Many observers expect the
ITU to approve a family of 3G standards based on variations of Code Division Multiple Access, Global System for
Mobile communications and Time Division Multiple Access technologies.
Meanwhile, key meetings next month in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and in March in Brazil will be held to iron out technical issues and intellectual-property-right
disputes invoked by Qualcomm Inc.-the San Diego pioneer and manufacturer of
CDMA phones-last
October.
3G also will be on the agenda when U.S. and EU officials gather here in March for a scheduled bilateral
meeting.
In February, telecom executives from the United States and Europe are expected to debate 3G in a meeting
here sponsored by the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue forum.
Lawmakers in Congress, for their part, are expected
to press Clinton administration officials on 3G policy during budget hearings early this year.
Ness, a prominent
voice in international telecom policy in recent years, said the wideband CDMA standard championed by Sweden’s L.M.
Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia Corp. does not provide for roaming or for a migration path for mobile phone operators
that want to upgrade systems-based on standards other than W-CDMA-to accommodate video, Internet and other
multimedia applications.
Others disagree with Ness, saying software enhancements will make roaming among
different standards possible.
In the meantime, according to Clinton administration sources, the EU is scrambling to
reply to a forceful letter from four U.S. agency heads in late December that advocated market-driven standards and
harmonization.
In addition, U.S. officials are awaiting responses to an inter-agency cable sent last November to the
EU with questions on 3G that served as a lead-up to a bilateral meeting here late last year that never took place.
The
Dec. 19 letter to EU Commissioner Martin Bangamann-sent around the same time Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott
(R-Miss.) and assistant majority leader Don Nickles (R-Okla.) wrote to President Clinton to express concern about the
EU’s 3G policy-was signed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky,
Commerce Secretary William Daley and FCC Chairman William Kennard.
According to a Clinton administration
source, the four-agency correspondence rattled an already embattled EU that last week narrowly escaped a
parliamentary meltdown over allegations of fraud and nepotism within its ranks.
That Albright weighed in on a
global commerce matter added significant punch to the letter, the source said.
Over the past six months, U.S.
telecom policy makers have been besieged by lobbyists on all sides of a 3G issue with many facets that affect American
wireless firms differently.
The administration’s policy appears to have evolved in recent months, starting with a
narrow endorsement of multiple, market-driven standards and later broadening to one that now includes harmonization.
Yet the administration’s 3G stance appears to waver from time to time depending on the U.S. official and the wireless
interest group being addressed.
It remains unclear, given the latest U.S. salvo, whether the United States will raise
the stakes further en route to a U.S.-EU trade war in the World Trade Organization.
The 15-member EU is under a
directive to deploy an ETSI-approved 3G standard throughout western Europe.
Wireless operators and
manufacturers associated with GSM and TDMA technologies claim Qualcomm’s zealous push for ITU convergence of
CDMA standards is a self-serving business ploy designed to capitalize on its CDMA intellectual property rights at the
expense of 3G technology.
“The standards issue ought to be dealt with on its own merits, and a scaled-back
W-CDMA standard should not be a vehicle for partial access of U.S. technology into Europe,” said Frank
Urbany, vice president of international policy for BellSouth Corp.
Urbany questioned why the United States has not
made as much of a fuss over Korea’s industrial CDMA policy. Urbany and others also have raised concerns with
lawmakers and policy makers that-because of the ruckus over CDMA convergence debate-the United States
inadvertently may be signaling support for CDMA over GSM and TDMA to the rest of the world.
Ness, said
Urbany, told him and Nokia lobbyist William Plummer that was not the administration’s intention.
Qualcomm,
backed by CDMA mobile phone operators, argues W-CDMA intentionally was engineered by Europeans not to be
compatible with second-generation CDMA mobile phone systems operated here and overseas.
Efforts to find
common ground among the warring parties have fallen short so far.
