3G: Just DO it

After Nortel Networks helped Verizon Wireless launch its first commercial CDMA 1x EV-DO market in San Diego, Steve Slattery knew there would be some kind of ripple effect throughout the industry. That ripple effect was a wave of nervousness that struck every person at every CDMA carrier trying to decide if and when to move to EV-DO.

“When you see someone jump out early, you can be guaranteed there's some scrutinizing being done — other carriers trying to figure out what they should do,” said Slattery, president of Nortel's CDMA business unit. “There are some nervous people out there at other carriers waiting to see what happens with Verizon's launch.”

Slattery might actually be one of those nervous people, but he probably wouldn't admit it. The Verizon launch is a high-profile stage for Nortel's largest technology unit. The vendor's CDMA group, based in Richardson, Texas, employs 2000 people worldwide and another 1000 contracted support staffers, Slattery said. Slattery himself has been with the company for 18 years — the last 14 of which he spent in wireless.

“I think I'm one of the longest-tenured wireless employees in the company,” he said. “The unit has fared pretty well despite the industry downsizing. We see CDMA as a growing part of our business, and EV-DO as a big part of it.”

And if you think Slattery is overstating the impact that a single market launch can have on the rest of the industry, consider that the Verizon Wireless launch was the first commercial EV-DO rollout by a major U.S. carrier (Midwest-focused Monet Mobile Networks and Brazilian carrier Vesper both launched EV-DO earlier) and that at the time of the launch, the CDMA world was at a critical crossroads. Carriers and vendors were trying to figure out whether to place their bets on EV-DO and its one-carrier data-only channel, or hedge their bets and wait for EV-DV and its spectrum-efficient, two-carrier channel for both data and voice (hence the DV designation) on a single card.

“You have to wonder if we'll see a domino effect now, with more carriers launching more EV-DO markets, because Verizon put its confidence and excitement in EV-DO,” Slattery said.

In Verizon's San Diego deployment, and in all EV-DO deployments that might take place in the next few years, the technology actually being deployed is EV-DO Release 0. The release requires a full carrier channel dedicated to data transmission at the risk of creating interference with voice transmissions. Verizon's single-market launch presents the easiest possible proving ground for EV-DO, said Ted Hoffman, vice president of technology development at Verizon Wireless. That's because the carrier is using spectrum it owns at 1.9 GHz for the data service, far away from the 850 MHz spectrum field in which it operates its CDMA 1xRTT voice and 2.5-gigabit data services.

“They're working with clean spectrum,” Nortel's Slattery said. “They didn't have to do it that way, but it helps eliminate any concerns about interference.”

Eventually, EV-DO Release A, a more spectrum-efficient version of EV-DO, will be available as an upgrade to Release 0 carriers. That version is currently going through the industry's standards labyrinth and will be available around 2006, Slattery said.

However, the most spectrum- and cost-efficient third-generation CDMA technology is EV-DV. If a carrier waits and deploys EV-DV with backward compatibility to 1xRTT, it will cost less in upgrades and grant more flexibility with always-precious radio spectrum. The downside of EV-DV is that it's also working its way through the standards process, and like EV-DO Release A, it may not be ready to be commercialized until about 2006.

“Whether you want to do EV-DO or EV-DV really depends on your market drivers and business case,” Slattery said. “EV-DV offers the best of both worlds, but the tradeoff is time to market.”

If spectrum availability and flexibility are of particular interest, EV-DV would be a strong choice — as it would be in situations where total channel capacity for either voice or data is less of an issue, such as along a rural highway.

Despite the early fires that have stoked an EV-DO vs. EV-DV debate, future 3G CDMA networks are likely to use both technologies in different markets, and even EV-DV deployed on top of EV-DV in some cases, to deliver greater data capacity, Slattery said.

“We do think that EV-DV will be useful down the road, and we will play in that market when the time comes,” he said.

For now, carriers are just getting their feet wet with EV-DO, and with limited rollouts so far, the industry has yet to see an EV-DO network tested under peak data loads. The busiest EV-DO network in the world probably is Vesper's in Brazil, where user uptake has been rapid.

Meanwhile, because of Verizon's separate frequency approach, its EV-DO network in San Diego isn't even close to being loaded. As it gets loaded, both Verizon and its vendor will be taking notes.

“I have gotten up to 1 Mb/s on the system, but you know that won't be average as more users come on,” Verizon's Hoffman said.

In addition to monitoring the new San Diego network for typical quality statistics, such as number of dropped calls, Verizon and Nortel will be looking at the average data rate and overall user experience, measurements that have never before been used by mobile carriers and their vendors.

“An average data rate of 300 kb/s to 600 kb/s is what you're looking for with EV-DO,” Slattery said. “That's going to be the range to watch as you add users to the network.”

That hoped-for bandwidth range may be higher than what other industry players propose as the typical data rate. Other companies have suggested that the speed of EV-DO will be about 100 kb/s to 300 kb/s under average usage, which is faster than competing GPRS data technology, and on the high end even faster than GPRS-successor EDGE.

AT&T Wireless recently launched EDGE services nationwide, and Cingular Wireless has one EDGE market up and running.

Watching data rate consistency will tell Verizon and Nortel a few things. However, because data applications aren't conducive to usage during typical mobile “busy hours,” Slattery said special attention is being paid to user experience during data downloads and usage of other applications.

Slattery said the Verizon deployment went as planned, and the process, which started with a trial last year, yielded few implementation surprises — “Though sometimes it's a surprise when things go right with a new technology,” he joked.

The new deployment also will help Nortel refine the process and expense of deploying EV-DO for carriers. It's a simple upgrade for operators that already have 1xRTT cell sites — Nortel adds an EV-DO module alongside the 1xRTT card already installed in the base station.

A wireless network operator could deploy EV-DO without first rolling out 1xRTT, but Slattery said that is unlikely to occur, except in the case of a wholesale wireless carrier focusing only on data or video applications. “Any voice incumbent will do 1xRTT first,” he said.

After adding the EV-DO module to the 1xRTT base station, network optimization can take a couple of weeks or more, depending on how comfortable carriers are with the new technology. Often, the most time-consuming and expensive part of the equation is arranging for the T-1 or fiber backhaul necessary to support mobile data traffic.

“Bits and minutes of use are increasing, but revenue per bit is declining,” Slattery said. “We need to focus on bringing the cost down for deploying EV-DO.”

Reducing network power consumption is one way of shrinking that operational expense burden, but exploring backhaul alternatives likely will produce the biggest operational expense benefits. Slattery said Nortel is looking into making wireless backhaul a core element of its mobile data infrastructure strategy, and is currently developing “a proprietary technology approach.”

It's still early in the market adoption of EV-DO, so Nortel has some time to make these refinements and propose a better business case to the 1xRTT operators mulling over when to move to 3G. Though economics and network performance in early deployments will help determine the pace of future adoption, the more important growth factor will be the development and acceptance of new data services.

“We've enabled a new network here, but services will drive it,” Slattery said. “The early deployments of EV-DO are table stakes. Soon enough, we'll all be wondering how we ever did without all these new data services.”