The Third Generation Partnership Project, a standards body initially established by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to work on W-CDMA technology, last week agreed to include standards work on GSM technology as well.
The organizational partners, which consist of standards-development bodies from the United States, China, Europe, Japan and Korea, agreed to create a new Technical Specification Group to accommodate the additional work. ETSI has now transferred work on GSM technology to 3GPP.
“Participants in both ETSI and 3GPP judged that the time was now right to import the ongoing GSM standardization work into the Partnership Project,” said ETSI Director General Karl Heinz Rosenbrock. “This will ensure that cohesion between GSM and the third-generation specifications may be managed efficiently.”
European and other operators around the world offering W-CDMA technology will initially offer islands of coverage and will rely heavily on roaming with GSM properties.
Work on GSM standards will include the Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution standard, or EDGE. TDMA operators have aligned themselves with Europe to develop EDGE, a technology that will allow both GSM and TDMA operators to offer 3G services using their existing spectrum. This will allow TDMA carriers to gain the economies of scale they need on equipment, proponents say.
“The move opens EDGE to a much broader playing field with China, Japan and Korea,” said Leo Nikkari, vice president of strategy and industry relations with the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium, an interest group that represents TDMA operators and vendors. “The significance is that this is global.”
European operators haven’t publicly voiced their interest in deploying EDGE technology at this point. The technology is touted as a solution for operators that don’t secure spectrum in upcoming European auctions and license grants. Carriers also may choose to roll out W-CDMA technology in certain regions, reserving EDGE technology for rural areas.
“People are still cautious in Europe until the dust settles on auctions,” said Nikkari. “We’re hearing a lot more discussion about EDGE … Anyone that has a current GSM network is looking seriously at EDGE in those bands. It will become much more of a time-to-market issue.”
It’s almost dangerous for European carriers to become vocal about EDGE technology today. Carriers need to justify why they need new spectrum, and if they can offer 3G-type services in their existing spectrum, regulatory authorities are apt to deny their requests.
Last week, TDMA operator AT&T Wireless Services briefed reporters on its plans for 3G technology. Chief Technical Officer Roderick Nelson indicated AT&T Wireless will deploy both EDGE and W-CDMA technology around the world. AT&T Wireless is going after spectrum in the Far East, where it will deploy W-CDMA technology. It also plans to participate in the upcoming U.S. 700 MHz auction and may use W-CDMA technology in the new spectrum, while upgrading its existing TDMA properties to EDGE technology.
“There’s one architecture that supports both technologies,” said Nelson.
AT&T Wireless has enough spectrum to roll out EDGE technology, he added. The carrier averages about 35 megahertz in each market since it owns hundreds of 10-megahertz PCS licenses that surround those existing markets. The extra spectrum can provide capacity release. AT&T Wireless initially planned to deploy its fixed wireless service in those licenses, but now is using spectrum in the 2.3 GHz band.
AT&T Wireless plans to begin market testing EDGE technology in the second half of next year, with commercial rollout in the later half of 2002. Initial data speeds will allow peak data rates of around 120 megabits per second. The full peak rate of 384 kbps won’t occur until AT&T launches Voice over Internet Protocol in late 2003.
Nelson declined to indicate any vendors committed to manufacturing EDGE handsets but said announcements will be forthcoming.
