Kudos for Blind Faith

Hats off to your investigative articles on IS-95, "Blind Faith" and "In Search of the Holy Grail," (Telephony, Sept. 8, 1997, page 24, and Global Telephony, October 1997, page 20). Your ability to separate fact from fiction regarding CDMA technology-from capacity claims to link budgets, from power balancing to signal strength and immunity from noise-represents a new level of objectivity and clarity in telecommunication journalism. We applaud your ability to balance often contradictory findings and paint an accurate portrait of CDMA's strengths and shortfalls.

What's next for the carrier community? While network architects seek better solutions for capacity planning, subscriber retention and bandwidth management, standardsmakers are debating a better way to get to next generation PCS-the "wireless multimedia networks." These networks, whether mobile or wireless local loop, must solve many of the shortcomings of current PCS networks-providing large amounts of bandwidth with better coverage and reliability for high-speed data, video, fax, wireless Internet/intranet access, simultaneous voice and many other applications. Can the community learn from IS-95? And can they converge on a standard that will provide more reliable global connectivity, correcting "narrowband" CDMA's weaknesses?

The answer is yes-but not without much hardheaded thinking and consensus building. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute is considering up to four proposals on the next generation wireless standard. Whatever the result, the proposal must align with other air interface technologies, including IS-95, and backbone networks worldwide. As you have reported, it is by no means clear that Japan, Europe and the Americas will settle on a single global standard. It may take years before the market can decide which standards will best serve subscribers and networks carriers.

As architects of broadband CDMA technology, InterDigital will soon offer solutions for the wireless local loop market with our TrueLink product. You did not mention us as contenders for next generation CDMA, but with our partners Siemens AG and Samsung, we are among the leaders. InterDigital has already demonstrated practical applications that carriers and their customers will want-integrated fax, voice and high-speed data, 144 kb/s wireless Web browsing and ISDN videoconferencing. We will introduce TrueLink in 1998.

Technology excellence, cost and service availability are the most important issues carriers will face in their next generation wireless choices. Standards-makers need to converge on the best that each vendor has to offer, integrating rather than reinventing the wheel.