In a surprising letter to the International Telecommunication Union, Europe’s standards body said it will consider harmonizing all CDMA-related third-generation proposals sent to the ITU, including cdma2000.
The move is a positive sign for vendors and U.S. carriers that have pushed heavily for convergence of cdma2000 technology, based on cdmaOne second-generation technology, with Europe’s chosen wideband Code Division Multiple Access technology for 3G. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute systematically has said it is not interested in convergence with cdma2000 technology and has rejected submissions on the topic, vendors claim. Now, ETSI is calling for contributions from companies and regional standards bodies on convergence and harmonization of all the CDMA standards.
Vendors caution, however, that ETSI’s move is only a starting point and the technical and political issues are too numerous to know whether true harmonization of the proposals can be achieved. Sweden-based L.M. Ericsson and Nokia Corp. of Finland, said to have a strong influence within ETSI, are pushing ahead with W-CDMA technology.
Others wonder if ETSI’s letter is a move to ease pressure from the United States, which has been lobbying the European Union to allow more than one 3G standard in GSM-centric Europe. Indeed, ETSI’s letter to the ITU comes the same week the EU took another step in adopting legislation to mandate an ETSI-approved standard for pan-European 3G mobile service. (See related story on page 8.)
At the same time, Japan, which submitted a W-CDMA proposal similar to Europe’s, has decided to study other 3G proposals-namely cdma2000 technology. That decision came amidst growing pressure from the Clinton administration to keep Japan from mandating one standard. China, which chairs the ITU committee in charge of evaluating the standards, is said to be pro-convergence, and the Telecommunications Industry Association in the United States has been working to harmonize the two CDMA proposals, WP-CDMA and cdma2000, submitted by U.S. standards bodies and has been travelling around the world to discuss harmonization.
ETSI’s letter resulted from a 3G meeting held last week in Dresden, Germany. Qualcomm Inc. Vice President of Government Affairs William Bold said the meeting encompassed serious discussions regarding convergence for the first time. Qualcomm has made clear it will not grant intellectual property rights it claims to own to W-CDMA technology unless one CDMA standard is achieved that encompasses parameters of cdma2000 technology. The ITU has said it will drop any proposal from 3G consideration if unresolved IPR issues are attached.
The ITU, the international body in charge of standards-setting, received several variations of CDMA radio technology proposals for 3G. ETSI told the ITU it “recognizes the harmonization and convergence work that has been done in different fora throughout the world.”
ETSI said it believes harmonization and convergence work should be split into two areas: radio-frequency parameters, which include bandwidth issues, and baseband issues, which involve the various air-interface proposals.
“Before the discussion regarding the baseband harmonization and convergence can be concluded, it is very important to understand and discuss the requirements used in design of the different CDMA RTT proposals,” wrote ETSI. “This discussion could give insight and understanding as to why the CDMA RTT proposals are different today. If a difference in the CDMA RTT proposals stems from different requirements, the harmonization and convergence discussion should study whether it is possible to align the particular requirements at issue within the relevant standardization bodies.”
Based on these statements, ETSI said it would contribute work on harmonization and convergence through its work on RF parameters within its working group. The detailed work will be done through an expert group “which will consider all contributions equally,” said the standards body. The next ETSI meeting, scheduled for Jan. 25-29 in France, will study the RF parameter specification. Time also will be set aside to discuss the differences between the various air-interface proposals.
Further, ETSI said it encourages companies and regional standardization bodies to submit papers about the requirements on the different CDMA proposals and information of the harmonization and convergence progress.
