MOSCOW-Russian Communications Minister Leonid Reiman, who is known to back European-developed technologies, confirmed that the U.S.-developed IS-95 standard is doomed in Russia.
“I continue to believe that the standard has absolutely no prospects for the Russian market. We shall stick to the line,” the minister said and made it clear that carriers operating CDMA technology based on the standard would have to switch to new standards when their licenses expire.
“The deadline for the standard operation has been fixed, and there are corresponding decisions of the State Commission on frequency distribution. The carriers, which constructed such networks have to normally operate them, recuperate the costs and find a way of switching to another technology or business, if they are interested in it,” Reiman said.
He added that even if the licenses are extended to “normally operating carriers,” “additional items may be included into them and outdated provisions excluded.”
Although Reiman agreed IS-95 is “a normal and operating standard,” he said, “There are several dozen good standards in the world. It is impossible to combine all of them in one country.”
Russia’s CDMA Association protested, saying the minister lacked sufficient information on the IS-95 standard. It stressed the number of CDMA clients is rapidly growing in the world and currently exceeds 80 million.
Despite Reiman’s statement, CDMA carrier Sovintel and Lucent Technologies said they are determined to continue cooperation in the construction of broadband fixed-wireless CDMA networks in Moscow and St. Petersburg. According to the contract signed in December 2000, Lucent is to supply Airloop equipment based on DS-CDMA technology, which operates in the 3.4 GHz to 3.6 GHz band. Commercial operation is scheduled for the third quarter of 2001.
“Our company has already received an official permission to construct the network and its testing,” Sovintel Director General Alexander Vinogradov said.
