SAN DIEGO-While many at the CDMA’s Development Group’s Americas Congress reminisced about how far the technology had come in such a short period of time, the big buzz on the show floor was about CDMA’s future.
And what better place to talk about that future than in San Diego, the Silicon Valley of CDMA. Unfortunately, San Diego’s usual near-perfect year-round weather conditions did not cooperate. But the rain that fell was not enough to dampen attendees’ enthusiasm for CDMA’s future.
Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDG, set the tone in his opening keynote address by touching on the present condition of the CDMA market worldwide, noting the technology’s continued subscriber growth in the Asia-Pacific and North and South American markets, and China Unicom’s recent decision to deploy a CDMA network in that country. (See story on page 53.)
But the future for CDMA-and what most in attendance were more than willing to discuss-centered on the potential for high-speed wireless transmission, and how that would drive the wireless Internet market.
“This year was a great year for CDMA,” said John Lodenius, senior vice president of marketing and product management for CDMA champion Qualcomm Inc. “But this year was just a spring board for next year.”
What Lodenius, and others expect next year is the commercial deployment of high-speed wireless transmission speeds, supported by cdma2000 1X and 1X Evolution technology, in excess of 2 Megabits per second. While all the major companies attending were there to tout their latest efforts to support those deployments, including Nokia Corp., which was at the show to shore up its admitted lack of strong presence in the CDMA market, Qualcomm took extraordinary steps by renting the aptly named S.S. Hornblower cruising vessel to show off its high-speed offerings.
During the ship’s two-hour tour of the San Diego harbor, Qualcomm gave live demonstrations of its High Data Rate technology. The most appealing demonstration involved two Qualcomm employees playing a highly graphic-intensive video game against each other on two separate computers placed on opposite ends of the ship. The only connection between the two (who seemed to be a little too good at playing the blood-filled video game) was Qualcomm’s HDR wireless connection.
CDMA’s international appeal, highlighted by the many attendees from Asia-Pacific and Latin American countries, was touched on during a CDG press conference where Terry Yee, director of the Asia-Pacific region for the CDG, noted China Unicom’s recent decision to deploy CDMA technology in its network was a rewarding outcome in a very challenging market.
“This decision means so much to the future of CDMA in China,” Yee said. “The train has not only left the station, it is at almost full speed.”
Greg Young, vice president of the CDG and senior product manager for Australian operator Telstra, spoke for many international carriers in support of CDMA’s international presence, noting Telstra recently implemented a successful network expansion program in that country in support of a small sporting event known as the Olympic Games.
“The evolution of CDMA is that it will deliver benefits to both customers and carriers. If it doesn’t do that, it is just technology for technology’s sake.”
In addition to covering the millions of roaming wireless visitors to Australia for the sporting event, Young pointed out that Telstra’s network now covered more than 97 percent of the country’s population and was ready for rollout of third-generation services.
