By Wireless Watch
Posted: 03/10/2003 at 09:43 GMTThe GSM Association has rebranded its 3G technology as 3GSM to avoid confusion with CDMA, and is claiming resounding victory over the Qualcomm-controlled rival. This is somewhat premature.
Few doubt that, eventually, the GSM upgrade paths to 3G – which embrace GPRS, EDGE and W-CDMA – will be more dominant than the 2.5G and 3G versions of CDMA, CDMA2000 1xRTT, EV-DO and EV-DV. But the CDMA upgrade path has been far simpler and smoother than the GSM one, so at this stage it is ahead in terms of live 3G networks and actual subscriber numbers. And the delays and technical hiccups in W-CDMA have served to enhance the appeal of CDMA and to guarantee it a longer and stronger life than would have been predicted a few years ago.
The GSM Association, the industry body behind the cellular standard, said this week that 85% of the world's operators have committed to W-CDMA. Its chief Ron Conway was on the offensive – or perhaps the defensive – slamming Australia's Telstra for choosing recently to upgrade to CDMA2000 1X EV-DO for its Mobile Loop services. By 2008, its users will be unable to roam in other countries, he claimed.
He was keen to reassure carriers that the key technical problem with 3GSM, the incompatibility of handsets with GPRS and GSM, was "on the way to being fixed", though this fixing process has already dragged on for far too long.
But despite teething problems, the installed base of GSM will ensure the success of 3GSM in the medium term. It has 850m subscribers worldwide, compared to 150m for CDMA, according to researchers at ABI. At this point, however, CDMA2000 is ahead. Of the 20 live 3G networks in the world, the CDMA-based ones have higher subscriber levels because there have been fewer technical problems, more rapid development of attractive handsets and more appealing pricing.
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