Third-generation technology standards groups say they accept the tri-mode Code Division Multiple Access standard recommended by mobile-phone operators worldwide.
The 3G Partnership Project 2, a standards group established in North America, last week said it agreed to accept the recommendations of the Operators Harmonization Group and modify its technical specification writing activities to produce standards for the direct sequence, multi-carrier and time division duplex modes of the CDMA 3G standard chosen by the OHG.
Earlier this month, the European counterpart-3G Partnership Project-which was developing most of the UMTS specification for the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, said it too supported OHG recommendations.
“We have accepted it,” said Christopher Corbett, director of marketing and distribution with ETSI. “We have to set a schedule on modes one and three (multi-carrier and TDD modes) that moves us forward as 3GPP2 is moving forward.”
ETSI founded 3GPP at the beginning of 1998 to develop Global System for Mobile communications-based 3G technology, primarily W-CDMA technology. 3GPP2 was spearheaded by the International Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop ANSI-41 based technologies. ANSI set up its own body, fearing 3GPP was too limiting. Members of both bodies include standards bodies from Japan, the United States and Europe.
Wireless industry members believe the two 3G standards bodies should merge to collaborate on work already done on the technology’s modes to avoid duplicate work. Corbett said a merger would slow standardization work.
“There is no willingness to merge the two groups because no one wants to slow the work,” said Corbett. “But we will work in collaboration as the OHG calls for to meet the requirements of a single standard. There is a lot of work that happens at the same time, and there is ample work to do on both sides of the technology. There is a large cross-over of membership between the two.”
The U.S. government remains concerned that Europe will fail to adopt the tri-mode standard, shutting out U.S. technologies. ETSI already had chosen W-CDMA technology as the region’s 3G standard.
Earlier this month, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and Commerce Secretary William Daley wrote Karel van Miert-the European Commission head of industrial affairs and information-telecommunications technologies-urging the EU to join the United States in embracing the carrier plan for 3G standards harmonization and threatening to complain to the World Trade Organization if Europe ignores International Telecommunication Union-adopted standards.
ITU expects to set CDMA-based and Time Division Multiple Access-based 3G standards by the end of the year, with 3GPP and 3GPP2 providing much of the technical work.
In related news, The Telecommunications Industry Association subcommittee TR 45.5 approved for publication the first 3G phase of cdmaOne technology known as IXRTT. IXRTT allows cdmaOne operators to introduce packet data at 144 kbps, increase voice capacity and standby time in an existing 1.25 MHz channel, said the CDMA Development Group.
