EDITORIAL IN MY OPINION Debating the debate

Like those in the wireless industry, we at Telephony have been chewing on the CDMA/TDMA/GSM technology debate for a long time. We've traveled far and wide collecting information on the matter, discussed it with industry experts and devoted a considerable amount of space to covering it.

Now, I think I've finally put my finger on the one thing that has disturbed me for so long about this topic. My revelation came in an appropriate setting: at an Ericsson briefing last week, where the company's top technology developers gave presentations on the benefits of their D-AMPS and GSM solutions. It included an explanation of Ericsson's CDMA research and why the company does not support the technology in its current form but has not ruled out future spread spectrum endeavors.

Then the floor opened for a Q&A period, during which an attendee, discounting what had just been said, accused Ericsson of CDMA defensiveness and asked if the company wasn't in fact trying to "nip CDMA in the bud."

It seems, given this exchange and some of the opposite flavor I witnessed at the CDMA World Congress in Singapore last month, that some factions of the industry view this debate from a rather skewed angle. They apparently don't realize that this is not a smear campaign; it is a discussion of which technology makes the most sense for a given wireless operator. It's that simple, but at the same time extraordinarily complicated because so many elements must be considered.

Vendors' decisions about what technologies to develop are important components of their strategies. But I've yet to see proof that an investment in any given wireless technology is a bad one. Judging from the numbers coming from vendors of all technological slants, none of them appear to be suffering for their decisions.

For wireless operators with distinct business cases, geographical considerations and time-to-market concerns, the value of the digital debate comes from digesting the technological information offered by the engineers who know the standards inside and out. Armed with details about the cost, capacity, voice quality and availability of equipment for all of the available technologies, wireless operators can make informed choices about what is best for them.

Those who choose to pit vendor against vendor and dwell solely on who's doing what seem blind to the idea that a multitechnology wireless environment can exist and that certain solutions make more sense than others in certain cases.

Constructive criticism and new approaches are welcome in any forum. Those who prefer to heckle, please leave the room. You're adding nothing to the dialogue.