As standards bodies around the world study the possibility of harmonizing third-generation technology, the prospect has taken an ugly turn in the United States.
While GSM-based wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology will be a key element in almost all proposals that will be submitted in June to the International Telecommunications Union, many vendors and interest groups are pushing to combine that proposal with Interim Standard-95-based W-cdmaOne. Proponents say harmonization will lead to global economies of scale for operators.
This harmonization effort has met resistance in GSM-centric Europe-whose standards body, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, has chosen W-CDMA technology for wide-area third-generation networks-and now in the United States.
The situation is as political as ever as factions have chastised each other for trying to impose their own political agenda in the third-generation technology development process. “It has become a war of words,” commented one industry executive. The GSM vs. cdmaOne battle continues.
The bruhaha began late last month when GSM North America, the North American Interest Group of the GSM MoU Association, and the GSM Alliance, a consortium of U.S. and Canadian personal communications services carriers, announced their overwhelming support of W-CDMA and denounced harmonization, saying the current proposed changes are “bad for the American and Canadian customers.”
“In a debate that has become increasingly political, it’s important to carefully assess the strengths and weaknesses of each technological option,” said GSM North America Chairman James Healy.” “Indeed, there are efforts underway to weaken the third-generation technology under the guise of harmonization. Choosing an inferior technology for the benefit and gain of a few manufacturers and operators would be wrong and a disservice to our American and Canadian customers.”
The CDMA Development Group shot back. “A few North American GSM operators appear concerned that harmonization will give North American CDMA operators a competitive advantage and have attempted to undermine harmonization efforts,” said Executive Director Perry LaForge. “It is incongruous to see this small group of GSM North American operators arguing against integrating the North American network standard ANSI-41(AMPS) with GSM. They do so only to undermine their IS-136 and cdmaOne competitors. Such gamesmanship will create an atmosphere of hostility and will very likely lead to substantial delays in the deployment of 3G systems by GSM operators in North America, which will impact 3G migration worldwide.”
The harmonization debate appears to center around converging the chip rates of the two technologies. W-CDMA’s proposed chip rate (4.096 MHz) is higher than W-cdmaOne’s (3.686 MHz). Global System for Mobile communications proponents say compromising to a lower chip rate will only benefit certain narrowband wireless operators and cause a significant reduction in system capacity. Convergence advocates say the chip-rate argument does not exist.
“An independent study by [Japan’s standards body] has demonstrated that is patently not true. Quite frankly, those kinds of arguments have no basis in reality,” said John Marinho, industry affairs director of Lucent Technologies Inc. and chairman of the Telecommunications Industry Association committee TR 45.
Qualcomm Inc. admits that it helped spark GSM groups’ announcement in late April because it is holding out for a 3.686 MHz chip rate. A chip rate of 3.8 MHz was moving ahead as a potential compromise.
“It excludes too many service providers and customers out there, and necessarily so,” said Dan Pegg, senior vice president of public affairs with Qualcomm. “The 3.6 chip rate will accommodate backward compatibility.”
Qualcomm is a key player in the harmonization debate. It said it owns key intellectual property rights to W-CDMA technology.
“We would be delighted to license our IPR (intellectual property rights) for any program that would provide a single standard and backward compatibility for all existing standards … Some, who would like to see the European and other markets protected from new competition, are not happy with that and would like to see a standard that would use our IPR and not be backward compatible with services providers who have already deployed cdmaOne,” said Pegg.
GSM North America’s Healy said the announcement was prompted by concerns that the U.S. government might be moving away from letting the market decide which technology is best to deploy. “Folks have tried to bring pressure to the detriment of the great American public. We thought it was necessary to speak up. The 3.8 chip rate is secondary.”
The CDG announced earlier this month that it was encouraged by the U.S. government’s progress in embracing the Family Systems concept for third-generation technology based on the outcome of a recent preparatory meeting for the U.S. State Department concerning upcoming submissions to the ITU. The CDG said there was universal support for the concept, leading the CDG to fully anticipate that it will be key to submissions forwarded to the ITU.
However, in light of these strong stances, it’s likely TIA-which has been pushing for harmonization within its working groups subcommittees-will submit three third-generation proposals to the ITU, W-CDMA, W-cdmaOne and one based on Time Division Multiple Access technology.
Meanwhile, it appears Japan’s standards body, the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses, is close to developing a convergence proposal, but has yet to work out a chip-rate parameter. “ARIB has studied the chip-rate issue and has concluded that the choice of this parameter value has no bearing on overall performance,” said the CDG’s LaForge.
The CDG said successful cdmaOne meetings were completed between the Telecommunications Technology Association in Korea and the United States’ TIA 45.5 Ad Hoc Committee, as well as Japan’s ARIB and TIA. Korea’s TTA and the U.S. TIA concluded a meeting to discuss 3G standardization, during which a formal relationship between the two bodies was formed.
Even if differing proposals from standards bodies are submitted to the ITU in June, some collaboration will take place this fall to harmonize them.
Government involvement
Some U.S. wireless vendors last week welcomed U.S. government interest in the standards-setting process. Rep. Connie Morella (R-Md.), chairwoman of the House Science subcommittee on technology, is pressing the Clinton administration for support to prevent U.S. companies from being unfairly muscled out of the international standards-setting process.
Morella, who is considering holding hearings this month on international standards setting, asked U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky to respond to several questions by May 5 on the 3G wireless standards-setting issue. A House Science Committee spokeswoman said USTR was granted an extension to reply to Morella’s questions.
Some manufacturers say the problem lies with ETSI, which they say has little interest in harmonization. CdmaOne technology has yet to penetrate Europe.
“Manufacturers are very upset over the fact that the United States went out of its way to standardize GSM for PCS. On the flip side, there are contributions that have been made to ETSI that have not been reviewed,” said one source familiar with the situation.
Lucent, a strong supporter of convergence, said some U.S. companies have been more vocal than others in trying to push the harmonization issue with ETSI.
“I know that individual companies have tried. Lucent has tried. We do run into ETSI’s effective lobbying group. The GSM MoU is very effective in making sure they maintain the same level,” said Marinho.
The GSM MoU, which represents European network operators, indicated in March that its aim was to work for the W-CDMA decision.
Marinho said Lucent welcomes government involvement because t
he entire process has been fraught with political problems, in particular, vendors jockeying for position. “There are issues coming up in terms of business agendas that need to be dealt with outside the standards process,” he said.
Bill Bold, Qualcomm’s vice president of government affairs, said: “We welcome any effort to look at the issue of what’s best for consumers and how and when American manufacturers are going to have full opportunity to compete in the world’s markets.”
Northern Telecom Inc. said that though it would like to see harmonization, it does not have concerns over the standardization process.
“We see very little to complain about,” said Peter MacLaren, vice president of business development with Nortel. “Some players in the industry are protesting too much … There are five manufacturers of infrastructure that supply 80 percent of the global market. The ultimate outcome here is largely influenced by what five manufacturers want to do. ETSI only represents agreed positions on manufacturers and major carriers.”
Motorola Inc., which has indicated in the past it would like to see harmonization, did not comment.
