For those who serenade wideband CDMA as the authentic third-generation protocol, Qualcomm Inc.-inspired cdma2000 is no more than a counterfeit David dueling the shadow of the giant to come.
When the giant comes, in all its messianic glories of data and voice, cdma2000 will know its place in the forgotten dustbowl of history, according to W-CDMA supporters.
They say UMTS, as it is alternatively called, may lumber in delay, but its primacy in the future is as assured as the sky over the earth.
But looking at the here and now, the advantage goes to cdma2000. The technology, which eased its way like a whisper into subscribers’ lives, began in South Korea. Today, cdma2000 1x can boast up to 50 networks in North America, Asia and Europe as well as five networks for its data-only version known as 1x EV-DO.
About 350 devices support the service, with the full complement of color displays, camera and GPS capabilities. Services offered on those devices include location-based services, m-commerce, entertainment and enterprise applications.
Even Europe-which some perceived as sacred ground where CDMA must not tread-has begun to see a modest foray of CDMA in the 450 MHz band, signifying the attraction the technology is enjoying in unlikely sectors.
“Cdma2000 continues to offer opportunities for operators,” remarked Perry LaForge, executive director at the CDMA Development Group.
On the other hand, UMTS is finding it hard to find traction in the market. One of the major obstacles is the handsets. Operators are finding out that they are unwieldy, costly and provide a limited range of services. Europe, where the technology is expected to take the lead, has witnessed operator frustration as the networks in such countries as Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain are not in full throttle and handsets still need debugging.
Camera-enabled Sony Ericsson mobile phones offered recently by NTT DoCoMo were riddled with software glitches, casting a shadow on the launch and the 40,000 units sold at that time. The carrier did not carry out a recall.
Software-defined radio supporters think the technology will play a big role in giving UMTS handsets a smooth way to the market by clearing hurdles, but the technology has not yet been adopted. Part of the problem is the handset’s inability to provide all the key functions required, including smooth handoffs between base stations, advanced voice solutions, video telephony and high-speed data.
Some of the handsets are capable of just parts of that functionality. In Japan, for example, cdma2000-advocate KDDI Corp. continues to improve on its market share over NTT DoCoMo with its FOMA services.
The other challenge for UMTS is that operators, especially in Europe, are still trying to figure out which companies have the right equipment and the right price for their networks and services. Hence most contracts are actually letters of intent and memorandums of understanding.
Nortel Networks Ltd. indicated last year that part of the challenge is making a radical switch from circuit-switch to packet technology, an area in which some of the big players lack expertise.
In a report that Nokia Corp. would neither confirm nor deny, Hutchison has decided to do away with 700 base stations from the Finnish-based network company and moved over to use NEC Corp.’s equipment.
Nokia spokeswoman Ritta Mard said although her company would not respond to the report, Nokia’s infrastructure has become operational in the networks of J-Phone in Japan and Hutchison 3G in Europe. She explained that the Finnish vendor has sold 17,000 base stations for UMTS.
Relative to its handset business, Nokia’s infrastructure business has been hurting and the company has not been running to the bank with lot of money from equipment proceeds, in part because of the general lackluster profile of the market as operators shrink from spending on network gear.
Cdma2000 handsets have not been riddled with the woes UMTS has chronicled partly because deploying the technology does not require a forklift. Most of the carriers only required a software or channel-card upgrade, and that has made the deployment of the services and handsets relatively painless.
Operators are now pushing further with cdma2000 in the 2.1-GHz band. This is principally in China and Japan, the next bread and butter of wireless.
Major wireless vendors like Nortel, Motorola Inc., L.M. Ericsson and Lucent Technologies Inc. say they have conducted trials on the band and believe that it is viable for rolling out cdma2000 networks.
“Time issues are the only obstacles,” remarked LaForge, expressing confidence that all the industry is awaiting is the issuing of licenses to the operators.
Spokespersons for all the vendors said they don’t need to make any major changes to their equipment. Motorola said it supports other bands-800 MHz, 1.7 GHz and 1.9 GHz-so moving to 2.1 GHz is a natural evolution.
“What we do is upgrade the architecture,” said Bruce Stone, vice president and general manager for CDMA systems at Motorola.
“For us, it is a simple exercise,” said Steve Searles, vice president of marketing for Nortel’s CDMA business.
The United States has not offered licenses for the band yet.
However, most 2.1 GHz operators will need more base stations than their counterparts that operate at lower frquencies. The propagation is not drastically different from that of the PCS band in the United States, said Mike Iandolo, vice president of CDMA product management at Lucent.
Searles explained the number of base stations deployed will also depend on the demand for services and economies of scale for the operator.
Testing equipment to handle the signals from 2.1 GHz and other bands has to identify areas of interference, said Wayne Newitts, manager, Americas marketing group at Tektronix Inc. Some of the equipment working at this includes the Comarco Scanner and Tektronix NETTEK.
Rolling out handsets will not provide any challenges so long as they are dual-band, proponents claim.
