WASHINGTON-A powerful Senate resolution that was to promote third-generation wireless harmonization was thoroughly diluted by U.S. backers of European-based mobile phone technology last week, a bizarre turnabout that drew a mix of new faces into the escalating controversy and further muddied the waters for the Clinton administration .
When finally amended to a Senate Foreign Operations appropriations bill last Wednesday, the Senate resolution-sponsored by Sens. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.)-limited itself merely to calling on the International Telecommunication Union to adopt a family of 3G standards.
But the ITU, which received four 3G standards from the United States in late June and 15 standards overall from around the world, is expected to approve a `family of standards’ next March. From that family, the European Union is expected to mandate a pan-European, wideband Code Division Multiple Access standard based on a Global System for Mobile communications technology that Sweden’s L.M. Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia Corp. dominate in Europe and much of the world.
In other words, the Senate resolution is largely meaningless.
As such, the outcome won cheers from lobbyists representing major U.S. wireless operators AT&T Corp., BellSouth Corp. and SBC Communications Inc., which use GSM and Time Division Multiple Access technologies.
“The Senate resolution further reaffirms the successful U.S. position: Let the marketplace decide!” declared the North American GSM Alliance.
The Universal Wireless Communications Consortium, of Bellevue, Wash., said the Senate action “will go a long way in ensuring that the interests of American consumers and companies are well represented.”
What passed for rousing applause, however, was in fact a collective sigh of relief from GSM and TDMA manufacturers and carriers that succeeded in derailing a Senate resolution originally intended to call for convergence of competing CDMA standards pending before the Geneva-based ITU.
Such a pronouncement, had it not been neutered, would have given a huge boost to Qualcomm Inc., the San Diego CDMA developer aggressively lobbying Congress and the administration to support a converged CDMA 3G global standard.
But Qualcomm, it turns out, was not the party pushing for a Senate resolution on 3G convergence. On the contrary, Qualcomm kept its distance from that particular lobbying campaign.
Rather, the original Senate resolution push came from a relative unknown in the 3G debate: wireless businessman Dennis Parker of Phoenix. Parker, president of CDI Telecommunications Inc., founded the American Wireless Freedom Coalition last spring “after finally deciding to stand up to be counted in the very real competition for international wireless technology supremacy.”
Parker, who hired lawyer-lobbyist Fred Graefe of Washington, D.C.’s Baker & Hostetler, told RCR he is not associated with any manufacturer or carrier.
Despite the watered-down Senate resolution, Kerrey’s strong declaration that accompanied the resolution carried some punch. “The ITU is now on notice that whatever standards it may adopt next, such standards must be harmonized or compatible with others,” he said.
An early draft of the Senate resolution strongly emphasized 3G harmonization, but all references to `harmonization’ were deleted in the final version.
It is unclear what effect the latest surge of 3G lobbying, combined with Motorola Inc.’s decision to distance itself from warring 3G factions, will have on U.S. policy makers.
“It (Motorola neutrality) obviously tends to isolate Qualcomm,” said an administration official.
Motorola, a major manufacturer of GSM and CDMA mobile phones around the world, met last week with Tom Kalil and Dorothy Robyn of the White House’s National Economic Council to explain its 3G dilemma.
Sources say White House staffers, while conceding Qualcomm is shut out of the European Union, have made clear to all sides that the United States will not ask the EU to adopt a single converged 3G standard.
Recent White House talks have centered around possibilities for a compromise. An interim step discussed last week would have the White House asking the Telecommunications Industry Association to assess the technical viability of 3G convergence. TIA said it has not been contacted by the White House on 3G.
Meantime, the State Department is inviting Robert Verrue, a top telecom diplomat from the EU, over for 3G talks with State’s Vonya McCann and other government officials this month.
Qualcomm, which helped develop cdma2000 and is pushing for a converged CDMA standard on 3G, disputed North America Alliance’s claim that high licensing royalties explain Qualcomm’s desire for convergence. If that were true, Qualcomm said, why have so many vendors, except L.M. Ericsson, agreed to pay for CDMA manufacturing rights.
In a letter last week to Rep. Philip Crane (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Ways & Means subcommittee on trade, Qualcomm also took issue with statements made in an earlier letter to Crane from European Telecommunications Standards Institute Director General Karl Heinz Rosenbrock in which ETSI’s processes were characterized as open, fair and democratic.
“The U.S. should not allow the EU to claim cooperation and open markets under the guise of the TEP (Transatlantic Economic Partnership) while simultaneously promoting protectionist policies that appear to violate existing international obligations,” said Kevin Kelley, senior vice president for external relations at Qualcomm.
