NEW YORK-It is all too easy to get “starry eyed” about the prospects for new generations of wireless services. As a counterpoint, a reality check is required about deployment and data speeds, handset availability and consumer interest, panelists said at the recent “Bear Stearns 2000 Global Communications Conference.”
To date, Motorola has five General Packet Radio Service networks getting ready for commercial deployment in the United Kingdom, Germany and several other countries, said Raghu Rau, vice president and director of business operations for Motorola’s Customer Solutions Group.
The first installation of GPRS on a GSM network is anticipated during the first half of 2001, depending on terminal availability, said William E. Clift, chief technical officer of Cingular Wireless.
“We have talked to Motorola and Ericsson about EDGE, and they hope to have the first systems up by the fourth quarter of 2001, with full introduction of EDGE late that year or in early 2002,” he said.
“You can get starry eyed about 3G because, theoretically, you could have five megabits (per second) service. Because of spectrum constraints, the more speed, the more spectrum consumed.”
Michael Coyne, director of 3G networks for L.M. Ericsson, said he is concerned that the hype over maximum data speeds of two Mbps offered by third generation wireless has created unrealistically high market expectations.
“Data rates at the suburban and rural edges of networks might not be much different from 2G. A critical issue is that propagation varies depending on frequency allocation,” he said.
Of equal importance, health and safety concerns about “heat and background radiation hazards” will impose further limitations on actual transmission speeds, Coyne added.
Cingular Wireless also expects it to take at least two or three years before the handsets available can take full advantage of the data throughput capacities of third generation networks, Clift said.
Sven Borgstrum, chief technical officer of Telesystem International Wireless, cautioned against overly optimistic near-term projections for third generation wireless customer reception.
“We even have very low adoption rates on 2G. Eventually, 3G will be at full coverage, but the starting point will be as a business man’s tool,” he said.
“It is a human trait to overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term. Commercial deployment is more a question of terminal availability and quality.”
Notwithstanding the substantial costs typically associated with installing advanced wireless networks, the new technologies also offer carriers many ways to save or earn more money.
“3G is basically an overlay. It is a blessing in disguise because we are not married to the same infrastructure providers that provided voice network (elements). It introduces new vendors and increases our leverage,” Clift said.
Although the long-term promise of next generation networks is advanced data and multimedia communications, 3G offers significant benefits for delivery of voice, which still dominates as the customer choice for wireless.
“One of the greatest advantages is a significant increase in voice capacity that significantly reduces the cost per channel, along with high data rates and always-on connections,” Ericsson’s Rau said.
