Just a few years ago, players on the CDMA aisle of the technology wars believed the future belonged to them alone. The other players, huffing with GSM, could not figure out what armor to deploy.
Qualcomm Inc.-which gave CDMA to the industry and the world-gloated, often publicly, about how CDMA would ride a technology transition to the third generation. CDMA2000 1xRTT and its subsequent steps, EV-DO and EV-DV, would follow along like a sailor on a smooth sea.
On the other side, the GSM players were working to recruit TDMA into their ranks and were required to spend a lot of money on spectrum as well as on a vast infrastructure forklift.
By the time the GSM players were ready for 3G networks, the CDMA wheelhorses would be so much further along, it would take a gargantuan effort to even see them in the horizon. The CDMA camp was the first to launch a next-generation service, and they called it 3G technology. The competition cried foul, explaining 1x did not carry the speed and bandwidth for what it thought was a grandiose claim. But the CDMA players saw themselves many years ahead, predicting a slam-dunk for themselves in the technology wars.
Soothsaying is not always kind to technology; at least, not with wireless.
Today, CDMA is alive and well, but it is quietly eyeing the new protocol on the block: W-CDMA.
The 3G protocol, which is viewed by most GSM players as their next big launching ground, is beginning to turn the corner following a period of glitches and interoperability stumbles.
So the big CDMA player, Qualcomm Inc., is not going to shy away from poaching.
“We are active in both technologies,” remarked Jason Kenagi, senior director of product management at Qualcomm.
Qualcomm has always claimed, like other big CDMA players such as Nortel Networks Ltd. and Lucent Technologies Inc., that W-CDMA technology is based on spread spectrum, the same bedrock on which CDMA stands. So any expert in CDMA will outplay the GSM participants that would have to learn a new technology with all its cargo of cost, new training and different equipment.
Players like Motorola Inc. and Nortel, which straddle both protocols, also claim unique advantages for understanding the technology and at the same time enjoying the footprint that GSM affords.
Nortel enjoys the best of both worlds, according to Mark Morell, director of carrier marketing at Nortel.
But the CDMA players claim that the new flowering of W-CDMA networks will not flag down the momentum of CDMA.
“There are still a lot of operators in the middle of EV-DO deployment,” said Andy Capener, director of marketing at Starent Networks.
In spite of the widespread sway of GSM networks around the world, some marquee CDMA carriers are pulling the weight of their protocols. Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless continue to point the torch.
In a big image booster for CDMA, Sprint announced last week a series of infrastructure contracts amounting to $3 billion for its DO deployments. Having made headlines a few years ago for shunning DO, Sprint has turned out to be one of its big advocates. The contracts, which spanned radio, core and other parts of the network, were doled out to three of the major network equipment vendors: Lucent, Nortel and Motorola.
Lucent and Nortel are often among the regular suspects in big deals like this. The inclusion of Motorola tells of the company’s coming of age with its acquisition of switches. In its quarterly report, the U.S. vendor witnessed a comparative leap in its equipment contracts.
Motorola does not see any threat to CDMA with the burgeoning of W-CDMA technology.
“We will invest in both of them,” said Raghu Rau, corporate vice president and director of global marketing. “Not one at the expense of the other.
Lucent echoes the same idea. “We support both CDMA2000 and W-CDMA,” remarked Lucent spokesman Ichiro Kawasaki in a written response to RCR Wireless News inquiries. “Our recent 3G wins demonstrate our spread-spectrum leadership-a W-CDMA win with Cingular Wireless and a CDMA2000 1x EV-DO win with Sprint.”
Lucent said its Sprint contract included Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem technology.
“We will preserve Sprint’s leadership in wireless data by providing customers the benefits of EV-DO services-the fastest wide-area data networking technology available today,” said Oliver Valente, Sprint vice president of technology development after the deal.
What the GSM players are pointing out is not so much the figures, but the current momentum. W-CDMA technology has been deployed in 46 commercial networks in 24 countries, with 71 more either in pre-commercial, planning, licensed or pre-deployment stages around the world, according to a recent report by Peter Rysavy of Rysavy Research. To sniff the future of W-CDMA technology, most watchers look at the progress of EDGE technology. It has been deployed by 106 operators around the world, 46 of them in the Americas, according to Rysavy.
The CDMA Development Group is not shy to count its numbers, saying 124 million CDMA2000 subscribers currently abound in the world. The number is growing at a pace of 4 million a month, it adds.
But the Shosteck Group anticipates up to 150 million W-CDMA subscribers around the world in 2007.
The business potential for W-CDMA has compelled the CDMA proprietor to make a bigger presence in the European and Asian markets where GSM players hold sway. Qualcomm recently acquired Trigenics, which will help interface CDMA and GSM technologies. The company has developed a multi-mode chip to bring the different air interface protocols together. Although BREW is a major CDMA product, Qualcomm said it already is working with major W-CDMA players, which it would not yet disclose.
It also is partnering with Bitfone and Insignia for firmware over-the-air technology, which will allow easy downloads across technologies. Siemens AG also has agreed to buy W-CDMA chips from Qualcomm.
Even if the future hums in W-CDMA’s favor, some CDMA players still believe their technology will not be fazed.
“DO is growing faster than W-CDMA,” said Amit Jain, director of product marketing for Irvana, which partners with the major CDMA vendors for DO. He argues that DO has a lot of life and years to serve the industry. He explains that some GSM carriers have switched to 1x networks against the pack.
W-CDMA may pack the larger following going forward, but CDMA enjoys its humble feast.
