L.M. Ericsson and Nokia Corp. announced they might offer GSM products for the 450 MHz band. The move-albeit somewhat delayed-is an attempt to provide a GSM alternative to CDMA offerings in the 450 MHz range.
Several carriers in European and Asian markets have deployed CDMA 450 MHz networks.
“We believe that GSM will be the leading access technology supporting mass-market services for a long time to come,” said Ulf Ewaldsson, vice president and head of GSM solutions at Ericsson. “GSM 450 is the next logical step in providing service to emerging growth markets.”
Both Ericsson and Nokia pointed out that GSM 450 MHz technology could work alongside standard GSM offerings in higher bands, and carriers also could upgrade the 450 MHz system to GPRS and EDGE technologies.
Already a number of countries are researching or deploying CDMA 450 MHz systems, including emerging markets like Russia and elsewhere. Due to the nature of radio waves, 450 MHz systems are less expensive to deploy than networks in higher bands-such as 800 MHz and 1900 MHz-simply because carriers need fewer towers to cover the same area.
As the modern world embraces wireless technology, handset and infrastructure vendors are looking at ways of tapping into the emerging market potential. Such markets require extremely low-cost products.
GSM proponents like Ericsson and Nokia likely are pushing GSM 450 MHz as a way to compete against companies that are supplying CDMA 450 MHz products. The move again highlights the prolonged battle between GSM and CDMA proponents.
Interestingly, Ericsson also promotes CDMA 450 MHz products.
Although Ericsson and Nokia both voiced their support for GSM 450 MHz products, neither company committed itself to the market. Ericsson said it would offer GSM 450 infrastructure next year “depending on market demand,” and Nokia said it would “potentially” offer GSM 450 handsets.
The GSM community long has discussed the possibility of 450 MHz products. Indeed, a 1999 article on the Global Mobile Suppliers Association Web site predicted GSM 450 MHz products would be available by 2001.
Qualcomm Inc. said the announcements from Ericsson and Nokia are not surprising considering the growth in emerging markets, but said that W-CDMA technology is taking root in Europe, noting that Vodafone Group plc is advertising that “it’s going to be a 3G Christmas.”
“Support for W-CDMA is accelerating in Europe,” said Jeremy James, senior director of communications at Qualcomm. “Operators are going to be rolling out 3G in some emerging markets, like Romania and Poland. It just makes more sense to go with 3G technology in rural areas where there are no land lines since you can then offer Internet connectivity.”
Industry analysts don’t seem too surprised either.
“Now we have many players in the 450 MHz space. Ericsson, Nokia, Nortel, IPWireless, Siemens/Flarion, Lucent and Huawei-with different technologies, GSM, CDMA, TDD and Flash OFDM,” said Martin Gutberlet, analyst with Gartner, Inc., a research and advisory firm.
“If it will be successful or not is determined by the availability of spectrum in each country for operators. There might be quite a few 450 MHz licenses available like in Eastern Europe, Latin America, China (on hold because of pending 3G licenses), Russia and Africa,” explained Gutberlet.
“On the pro side, 450 is a well-defined band by the International Telecommunications Union with potential upgrade to GPRS and EDGE and the need for fewer base stations means cheaper rollouts.
“The cons are 450 offers limited bandwidth and data speeds, and limited handset variety,” he said.
“There are already quite a few 450 MHz networks up and running, but it will remain niche.”
