Just when the third-generation evolution path for CDMA operators was looking convoluted, a new proposal drafted by these carriers may unify a single path to megabit data speeds.
Code Division Multiple Access carriers this week expect to submit a proposal to Third Generation Partnership Project 2, a standards body established by the Telecommunications Industry Association to work on third-generation technology, that specifies how 1XRTT technology should evolve.
The proposal comes at a time when vendors are pushing their own megabit data enhancements to the 1X standard, a 3G technology enhancement to CDMA networks that doubles voice capacity and adds packet-based data speeds of up to 144 kilobits-per-second. Most CDMA operators plan to deploy 1X technology some time next year. Many are beginning to realize the value of megabit-speed enhancements and have grown concerned about the increase in fragmented proposals for this prospect.
Qualcomm Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. are pitted against Motorola Inc. and Nokia Corp. Motorola announced plans last month to challenge Qualcomm’s 2.4-megabit High Data Rate technology, introducing its own 1X enhancement for carriers to consider. Nokia later announced support for Motorola’s technology, called 1xtreme, which promises integrated voice and data with transmission speeds of 5.2 megabits, rather than the data-only channel concept HDR technology encompasses.
“We defined what we’d like to see in terms of capabilities of various points of the evolution path of the (1X) system,” said Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDMA Development Group. LaForge declined to give any specifics about the proposal until it is released this week. “We’re not specifying any technology names. We’re giving manufacturer’s requirements, and it’s up to them how they meet those requirements … We have universal agreement with carriers on this.”
Those with knowledge of the proposal say CDMA operators by 2002 could offer data services at hundreds of kilobit speeds with the new 1X enhancements. Just how HDR and 1Xtreme will fit into these new requirements is unknown. Vendors and carriers have attended standards meetings in recent weeks to work on a consolidated proposal. Not all operators have been convinced that Qualcomm’s technology in today’s form is acceptable, which prompted Motorola’s new proposal last month.
However, time to market will be a critical issue for CDMA carriers wishing to deploy high-speed data services within the next two years, and HDR technology has the advantage in this arena. Qualcomm’s demonstrations of HDR technology in November produced transmission speeds of 1.8 megabits per second. Last week the company demonstrated the technology for President Clinton in Whiteville, N.C., proposing it as a solution to the digital divide in rural areas.
The 1xtreme proposal is still on paper, and Motorola and Nokia haven’t made any testing claims about the new technology, though they say commercial equipment would become available around the same time frame as HDR equipment in 2002.
With the enhancements CDMA carriers are talking about, many question the need for CDMA operators to move toward 3G wideband systems when they can get the same performance at lower costs and less spectrum with narrowband systems.
“If narrowband enhancements really prove to be real, I question why an operator would want to go wideband,” Oliver Valente, vice president of technology and advanced systems development with Sprint PCS, recently told RCR. Sprint PCS declined to comment on this week’s expected proposal.
The CDG believes that this new proposal is such a powerful proposition that it may convince those carriers leaning toward GSM-based W-CDMA technology to deploy 1X technology instead.
“It’s a way to be more powerful in a quarter as much spectrum,” said LaForge. “Carriers would be foolhardy not to take a serious look at this.”
