WASHINGTON-As the World Radiocommunication Conference opens today in Turkey, trade and spectrum issues governing third-generation mobile-phone technology remain heavily mired in controversies that are likely to play out in coming months as competition for the multibillion dollar global wireless market heats up.
On one front, lawmakers warned the State Department-shortly before the U.S. delegation left for Istanbul late last week-not to veer from a U.S. proposal advocating a flexible multiband approach to 3G global spectrum allocations.
“In the event that the ITU [International Telecommunication Union] adopts any proposal that does not provide the United States with sufficient flexibility, we urge you to instruct our ambassador to the WRC-2000, Gail Schoettler, to take a clear reservation against it,” said Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) in a letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Sprint PCS, headquartered in Kansas City, said it met with lawmakers about the 3G WRC-2000 spectrum issue.
At least two other lawmakers are said to have sent a similar letter to Albright, a sign possibly suggesting congressional concern about the administration’s commitment to 3G global spectrum flexibility and the possibility that Schoettler might compromise if she cannot secure enough support for the U.S. plan.
On another front, several manufacturers in the hunt for 3G equipment market share stepped up their criticism of the Clinton administration’s handling of mobile-phone technology issues.
Such 3G controversy is not new to the White House, which was hammered in the past by various wireless firms during the debate over 3G mobile-phone standardization and trade barriers.
But in recent months, some manufacturers have grown increasingly irritated over what they see as favoritism shown by the Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative toward Code Division Multiple Access technology as it pushes other governments, like the European Union, to open their markets to competing technologies.
Critics point to numerous U.S. trade missions to China, where U.S. officials have prodded the Chinese government to adopt CDMA technology as part of World Trade Organization concessions. A recent guest article in RCR written by Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade David Aaron in late March (shortly before leaving public office to enter the private sector) angered some vendors.
Aaron argued the strength of the U.S. mobile-phone market compared with Europe’s market, fending off a rash of news articles in past months that put Europe and Japan far head of the United States in the explosive wireless phone-Internet business.
He cited CDMA as an example of an innovative and competitive technology and Qualcomm Inc. as a technology leader. The Commerce Department got an earful from a wireless company executive who took offense to CDMA references. The criticism has prompted the Commerce Department to draft a clarification set to appear in RCR shortly.
More recently, USTR, with the urging of CDMA innovator Qualcomm, wrote the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications asking for the MPT’s assurances that applicants for 3G licenses will not be disadvantaged if they choose technology other than W-CDMA technology.
“The narrow choices operators and equipment manufacturers may now perceive as being acceptable to the MPT risk locking in technology choices that may not reflect long-term market demand and efficient use of spectrum,” wrote the USTR, referring to CDMA technology.
That letter irked Motorola Inc., a top U.S. mobile-phone manufacturer and a leading global supplier of different wireless technologies. After learning of the letter to Japan, Motorola sent its lobbyists to USTR to complain that the Clinton administration did not appear to be taking neutral stance of mobile-phone technology. Motorola was not available for comment.
Qualcomm and the rest of the CDMA community have become master lobbyists, concede its critics. They say Qualcomm has been able to bend the ear of the U.S. government, appealing to the patriotism that surrounds the concept of U.S.-made technology, like CDMA. Time Division Multiple Access technology is usually largely left out of trade discussions, claim critics.
The Universal Wireless Communications Consortium last year aggressively stepped up its promotion of TDMA-based technology worldwide, educating standards and regulatory bodies on the benefits of interoperability that will provide a global footprint.
Educating the government about technology issues is not an easy task. Staffs are lean and often cover a variety of industries, not just telecommunications, according to wireless firms. Companies must spend large amounts of money filling out forms in the Commerce Department’s Advocacy Office and briefing people on a continual basis.
“[The CDMA community has] been very effective lobbying, but it’s counterproductive to the vibrancy of an industry,” said John Giere, vice president of external and public affairs with Ericsson Inc., which today builds to all three dominant digital technologies in the United States and abroad. “They’ve been able to create a perception detrimental to some of the other technologies and the industry as a whole.”
Giere admits that administration efforts to pry open markets to CDMA technology have helped his company gain access to new markets, but said he believes the government’s job is to get behind the wireless industry as a whole and promote it. Anything other than that, said Giere, becomes dangerous.
“It gets to be more and more a dangerous proposition to have the U.S. government in the business-development role,” said Giere. “Companies are making acquisitions around the world in the U.S. and vice versa.”
Finnish-based Nokia is another vendor that has grown increasingly concerned with the U.S. government’s stance on technology issues. It supports almost 12,000 U.S. employees, with nearly $2 billion in exports from the United States.
“It’s certainly appropriate for the government to voice well-founded concerns, but over the last couple of years, on a number of different occasions, the U.S. government has perhaps based its concerns on a less-than-balanced understanding of the facts,” said Bill Plummer, vice president of government and industry affairs with Nokia. “This has created an unfortunate and unintended perception that it is promoting one standard or one company … We’re global companies, and we’re seeking to advance to the next generation of systems based on global standards.”
For sure, administration officials at different times have noted CDMA technology at briefings and in other venues. Some public references are more specific than others. An undated fact sheet posted online by the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration, which was intended to clarify confusion surrounding CDMA exports to China, states, “[T]he U.S. government supports and encourages the use of CDMA technology in China’s civilian telecommunications system.”
However, the Commerce Department says it has lobbied for CDMA in other countries only because a number of companies have approached it, wanting to build end-to-end systems.
Qualcomm defends its lobbying and the administration’s handling of the issue.
“U.S. government officials are scrupulous about being technology-neutral in their work to open foreign markets to all U.S.-developed wireless technologies,” said Jonas Neihardt, vice president for federal government affairs at Qualcomm.
Neihardt added: “CDMA dominates trade discussions for two reasons: first, because several foreign markets are currently closed to CDMA, and, second, because operators and nations abroad realize that GSM/TDMA have no clear economical evolution paths to next-generation services.”
