Migration growing pains

CDMA community hammers out proposals for high-speed data The CDMA community finds itself at another crossroads as it tries to reduce a number of technology proposals that promise data speeds of 5 Mb/s.

Next year, most CDMA operators plan to migrate to 1XRTT, a third generation standard that doubles voice capacity and adds packet data speeds of up to 144 kb/s. Shortly after, in early 2002, vendors expect that CDMA carriers can add what is known as 1X EV (evolution) DO (data only), choosing to dedicate a 1.25 MHz channel to deploy multimedia services at speeds of up to 2.4 Mb/s.

But the CDMA community is working on more enhancements. Up to eight different proposals may be on the table for the next phase of 1X EV DV (data and voice), which promises even higher data speeds and real-time applications over a voice-over-IP network.

The CDMA industry also is working on simpler names for the new technologies.

The Third-Generation Partnership Project 2, an international standards body established by the Telecommunications Industry Association to develop Interim Standard-95 3G technology standards, is working on merging the number of proposals; up to seven could be on the table. At press time, standards committees were meeting in Kauai, Hawaii, where executives believe more companies will come forward with additional solutions. A joint proposal from Motorola and Nokia is on the table as well as proposals from Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks, LinkAir, Samsung and LG Electronics. Qualcomm also is expected to make a contribution.

There wasn't much interest in these types of solutions until Qualcomm introduced High Data Rate (HDR) technology, which allows carriers to offer multimedia services at megabit speeds by allocating a 1.25 MHz channel solely to data services.

Qualcomm was drumming up support for HDR when Motorola and Nokia approached the CDMA industry earlier this year with their own solution, called 1xtreme, that promised to offer even higher data speeds and real-time applications with voice and data on the same channel.

However, Qualcomm's technology was furthest along, and the CDMA community tabled other proposals so operators could get to market as quickly as possible with a multimedia solution. Now the CDMA industry is ready for the second round and entertaining numerous proposals for the next phase of 1X EV. With 1X EV DO already accepted as the standard, the CDMA industry is looking to merge all proposed standards and create a second phase of the standard by June 2001.

"The 3G 1X market is a proven one, and we are all leveraging that and making sure we have a future," said Ed Chao, senior manager for 3G CDMA data for Lucent, an early champion of HDR technology. "There were a lot of concepts that had to be frozen because we didn't have enough time to work on them. There are a lot of folks looking at concepts to make sure they have their hand in the pie because they know 1X will continue to be successful."

CDMA operators are unlikely to migrate to 3XRTT technology, a wideband Interim Standard 95-based solution that requires more spectrum, because they can get the same data speeds within today's spectrum constraints and a rapid time frame without major network upgrades. 1X upgrades will primarily consist of software enhancements and some changes in base stations. Therefore, new enhancements such as 1X EV DV receive a lot of interest from vendors.

"I'm anticipating the industry won't go to 3X at all and will go directly to 1X EV," said Mark Morell, director of wireless Internet solutions marketing for Nortel. "And if everything goes according to plan, it looks like 1X EV [DO] in 2002, with DV coming a year after that."

At the forefront of the 1X EV DV battle is the proposal from Motorola and Nokia. Earlier this year, the CDMA community said the companies' proposal was too conceptual to be considered in the first phase.

Both companies have continued to work on the 1xtreme proposal with demonstrations that show backward compatibility to 1X technology slated for January, said Neal Campbell, director of CDMA product operations for Motorola. Nokia is providing the handsets.

"We've started discussions with other manufacturers to get a merger of the standards rolling," Campbell said. "Ideally, we want 1xtreme to be the base and have others on top of that."

Another strong contender, LinkAir, recently completed a $20 million second round of financing. The Silicon Valley-based company is developing a solution called Large Area Synchronized CDMA technology and recently received validation of the technology from China's Ministry of Information Industry. However, the technology is not as closely compatible with CDMA technology as other proposals.

"China's [Ministry of Information Industry] validated our technology and asked major institutes in China to look at our demo," said Frederic Leroudier, vice president of standard and business development for LinkAir. "Following that successful showing, they decided to further endorse the technology as a 3G technology for China.... We're able to increase efficiency for voice and data services. We think we are the only one that can do that."

It's unclear what the other standards encompass, but proposals from Lucent and Nortel provide specific enhancements to increase efficiency and backward compatibility of the standard. Lucent is proposing intelligent antenna techniques.

"It boils down to about a half-dozen key technical enhancements, and they all base themselves on 1X," Chao said. "Our focus is on improving 1X and protecting the base while others are not as motivated to do that."

So what is the big deal about 1X EV DV? A more efficient network and faster data speeds. Because demand for mobile data continues to grow, the ability to mix voice and data services on the same network will become an important factor of all IP networks.

"During the history of communications, what has driven solutions is more spectrally efficient solutions," Leroudier said. "The radio environment is very costly."

The time frame during which operators will deploy the technology will coincide with the time vendors embrace a core network IP strategy, Chao said.

"CDMA operators will be early to market with high-speed data services with 1X EV DO, and they will get up on the IP learning curve without worrying about quality of service issues around a core IP strategy," he said.

While 1X EV DO doesn't allow for real-time interactive applications because voice and data are on separate channels, 1X EV DV does.1X EV DO will hand off to the 1X network when customers want to interrupt their data sessions to make a voice call. This is a big deal for CDMA operators that want to offer highly interactive applications such as gaming.

"Interactive gaming, we think, is a huge application," said Oliver Valente, chief technology officer of Sprint PCS.

Sprint PCS has added 27 gaming applications within the last 45 days. Within the first few weeks of offering the services, thousands of users have been trying out the applications, often for seven minutes a session, Valente said.

"We're talking about a lot of bandwidth," said Nortel's Morell. "There are endless possibilities, and we still are in the comprehension mode about 1X."