The business case for cdmaOne operators to migrate to 1XRTT technology is a no-brainer since carriers will have the luxury of doubling their voice capacity and experimenting with high-speed data services, said The Strategis Group’s wireless analyst John Dorfman in a conference call last week.
Dorfman, outlining a study assessing the 2.5-generation and 3G market in the United States, said Global System for Mobile communications and Time Division Multiple Access operators, on the other hand, are betting on demand for high-speed data services when they roll out EDGE, or Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution, by around 2002. EDGE will not give carriers any extra voice capacity.
“They are going to be heavily promoting [data],” said Dorfman.
By around 2001, every major Code Division Multiple Access carrier has plans to upgrade their networks to 1X technology, which will allow up to 144 kilobits-per-second data speeds, Dorfman said. Beyond 1X technology, Qualcomm’s High Data Rate technology could provide a compelling business case since it allows for data speeds of more than 2 megabits per second using the same radio frequency characteristics as today’s networks.
“The other upgrade path is 3XRTT, and again it would take an enormous increase in demand for high-speed wireless to propel carriers to 3X,” said Dorfman. “The issue going forward is the relationship between HDR and 3X.”
The business case for deploying 2.5G/3G services is different for each carrier depending on how much capital expenditures already are in the ground, said Dorfman.
“A CDMA carrier is well set up to deploy HDR, while another carrier would have to make a large cap ex (capital expenditure) assessment,” he said.
Other factors carriers consider is how much spectrum they already have and the price of additional spectrum. Carriers also will need to create demand for high-speed data services.
“Subscribers will need to be led and won’t make the jump from [short message service] and paging to using wireless multimedia,” he said. “It’s up to the carriers to educate subscribers.”
