CANNES, France-CDMA proponents have their voice in the CDMA Development Group. TDMA
advocates have their say through the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium. Now the GSM world has its
own lobbying force with the formation of the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA).
The GSA, comprising
only suppliers, was established to promote the Global System for Mobile communications standard in new and existing
markets as well as to promote the evolution of GSM toward third-generation multimedia, said GSA President Alan
Hadden. GSA considers Latin America a primary target, as well as China, Eastern Europe and North America.
The
GSM MoU Association, now known as the GSM Association, promotes GSM but from a carrier’s perspective, claims
Hadden, who said a forum was needed to allow both large and small GSM vendors to share information for developing
their products.
“Companies are realizing they can do a lot on their own, but they can do even more
together,” he said.
What took the companies so long to band together? In the early days of GSM there weren’t
that many suppliers, said GSM representative Roy Doughty, who is marketing director of U.K.-based Bridge Trading
International, a small company offering intelligent network and software products. Now, he explained, carriers are
starting to differentiate themselves, and a lot of value-added service vendors have entered the scene.
“Until
recently, we have been busy setting up networks,” said GSA Vice President Peter Reinisch, vice president of
marketing communications for Siemens A.G. Now third and fourth operators have entered the markets, and carriers
need to differentiate their offerings.
The GSA believes using GSM is one way Latin American carriers can
differentiate their products. Primary targets will be licensees from upcoming personal communications services tenders
in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia.
Current members of GSA are Aethos Communication Systems, ARC Cores,
Benefone, BTI, Compaq, Comptel, Convergys Corp., L.M. Ericsson, Filtronic Comtek, GTE Telecommunications
Services Inc., Hewlett-Packard, Italtel, LCC Europe, Logica Aldiscon, Lucent Technologies Inc., Nokia, Omnipoint
Technologies Inc., Raytheon T1 Systems, Saville Systems, Schlumberger, Scientific Connections, Siemens, Texas
Instruments, Wavecom and X-Net. Notably absent from the list is Motorola Inc.
The GSA promotes GSM as the
basis for UMTS, but Hadden asserts the group’s creation was not in response to the tremendous amount of lobbying
being done by the CDMA Development Group.
The group announced at the GSM World Congress that the GSA
has become a partner in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project. The 3GPP, announced in December, is an initiative
primarily comprising telecom standards organizations from Europe, Japan, South Korea and the United States, which
are working together to develop a common technical standard for third-generation mobile service.
