With a commercial launch in full gear in South Korea, Samsung Inc. may be the John the Baptist of 3G as the first manufacturer to streak out of the uncertain cloud hovering over migration to the technology.
Already eyeing the United States’ market with trials of its 1xRTT technology, which is the first migration phase for cdma2000’s full blossom into third-generation services, Samsung has raised the stakes for NTT DoCoMo, which has scheduled its launch of W-CDMA service for May 30.
Although in the long run W-CDMA technology is expected to cover more than 70 percent of the market share worldwide because it takes the migratory path of GSM, a more dominant technology, some analysts still cast doubts over its launch in the second quarter of the year because handsets may not be ready. NTT DoCoMo has shipped about 500,000 phones in preparation for the launch.
BT-owned Manx Telecom in Monaco also said it expects to launch 3G services by the middle of the year.
Samsung launched its cdma2000 1x service in Korea with SK Telecom and Korea Telecom last October, and the success has propelled the company to move into a commercial launch in the United States, which it expects to happen before the end of the year.
“We’ll bring the same equipment to the United States,” said George Vardakis, senior director, marketing and sales for Samsung, who explained that the company’s equipment requires only a software download from 2G to 3G. “We can deploy our equipment today and upgrade without additional expense or labor. The net result is added value.”
Vardakis said Samsung is undertaking trials with Sprint PCS in the United States and Puerto Rico. Other vendors like Motorola Inc., Nortel Networks and Nokia Corp. also are undertaking in the United States and around the world.
Verizon and Sprint PCS hope to launch their 3G networks by the end of the year.
Motorola has signed contracts to try out cdma2000 networks for Hutchison Telecom in Hong Kong, KDDI in Japan and Alltel Corp. in the United States. Lucent Technologies Inc. and Nortel are working on Verizon’s networks; Samsung and Nortel are in trials with Bell Mobility; Qualcomm Inc. with Sprint; and Nortel with Australia’s Telstra.
Dr. Irwin Jacobs, Qualcomm’s chief executive, stated recently that with merely a software upgrade, Qualcomm could overlay its 1x technology over Europe’s GSM networks, but no GSM carrier has decided to make the switch.
Part of the reason may be the belief that wideband CDMA will be the long-term technology leader.
Christine Stasikowski, a senior analyst with Strategis Group, who has just completed a study, “Next Generation Global Wireless Technology and Infrastructure,” said although CDMA 1x may have some sway in the short term, W-CDMA will be the leading technology in the longer term, with flexibility to migrate into fourth-generation services.
“The reason the migration for cdma2000 is smoother is because CDMA 1x and 1xEV are based on the cdmaOne family of chips and thus are forward and backward compatible with other cdmaOne networks,” said Stasikowski. “Therefore upgrades are simple and involve mainly channel cards and software upgrades. … In the beginning, CDMA will have the advantage,” she said, “but W-CDMA will have an edge in economies of scale, global roaming and evolution to 4G.”
She said migration to 1x technology involves software upgrades to the base station controller, software upgrades to the mobile switching center, new software and channel boards for base stations, a different router for the packet data service node and a packet data service node with additional software.
For W-CDMA, the gravitation will involve MSC software to support a dual-mode service, the addition of ATM switched routers for packet data. It will also involve a broadband network using ATM protocol to connect various network components, new wideband receivers and transmitters with software pooled resources and inter-working function with hardware and software to connect different networks and modify its operating system for new services and provide improved maintenance capabilities. Both 1x and the initial launch of W-CDMA in May are expected to be the low-end of the technologies, both hoping to acquire greater capacity and speed in 2002. CDMA 1x is expected to gravitate to 1xEV, which is a greater data capacity and later to 1xEV DO for data only and 1xEV DV for voice and data.
