Beyond the Mudslinging

By Ira Brodsky
President, Datacomm Research Co.

The battle over who will rule the global wireless market is now in full swing. On the surface, it looks like a skirmish between competing technology acronyms. But take a closer look, and you'll see it's a clash between opposing ideologies.

On one side stand the believers in government-mandated standards. Their new technology development model, best represented today in the European community, sounds like something from Ross Perot: "We'll gather together the best minds, stick 'em in a room and keep the door locked until they come up with the answer." In the Nanny State, the population is insulated from difficult technology choices by panels of "experts."

On the other side stand the followers of voluntary industry standards. The U.S. is this camp's leading champion; its development model is reminiscent of the Old West. Vendors simply stake out their claims and start digging. There are few rules and even fewer sheriffs. But in this realm, it's not the Cowboys with the biggest guns who win -- it's the ones with the best brains.

If I had to choose with my eyes closed, I'd take the free market approach every time. The notion that a committee can come up with the best solution simply boggles the mind. Only an open market can offer a fighting chance to innovators with ideas just crazy enough they might work. Today, the U.S. wireless industry confronts this same choice as we head towards the final showdown between Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) -- primarily, Europe's committee-produced Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) -- and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology invented by Qualcomm Corp.

The TDMA camp brags its technology is "here today." Yes, Europe is well ahead of the U.S. in terms of digital cellular network deployments and subscribers. Commercial TDMA systems (D-AMPS) are operating in the U.S. cellular bands, and the first PCS networks are up and running with PCS-1900, a GSM derivative. GSM spent a decade in gestation and had its share of birthing pains, but it now works reasonably well and offers some nice features.

The CDMA camp, in contrast, has set a more ambitious agenda. It promises much greater capacity, better voice quality, and longer handset battery life. The first commercial CDMA service was launched in Hong Kong last October, followed by a more recent launch in Korea. Admittedly, CDMA development began in earnest six years ago, and still no fully commercial service exists in the U.S. But the CDMA effort began later. TDMA was no further along at the same point in its history, despite its more modest performance goals.

Europe's leading vendors tout the fact GSM is commercially available in dozen of countries. However, in many -- if not most -- of those countries GSM is the only legally permitted digital solution. In addition, while CDMA cellular networks are upgrades to existing, revenue-generating analog systems, GSM networks are being deployed in virgin spectrum. GSM may look like the safer choice, but CDMA has garnered roughly half of U.S. carrier commitments.

The GSM camp accuses the CDMA side of dirty tricks -- secretly backing a campaign alleging that GSM phones interfere with hearing aids, pacemakers, and motorized wheelchairs. But it can hardly claim the moral high ground: Some TDMA proponents charge Qualcomm with nothing less than technology fraud. Market Trim Tabs, an investment newsletter and GSM cheerleader, attributes CDMA's successes to what it shamelessly refers to as "The CDMA Mafia."

I've followed the digital debate since Qualcomm introduced CDMA. I have gone back and forth with critics and proponents, examining every charge and countercharge. Although CDMA is a complex and ambitious technology, there don't appear to be any show-stoppers.

Furthermore, the suggestion that Motorola, Lucent Technologies and Northern Telecom would pour billions of dollars into CDMA just because they were swayed by a clever sales pitch is quite hard to swallow. Likewise, carriers don't spend billions of dollars on spectrum auctions and then choose a technology without performing due diligence. Free market believers know the free market is competent enough to detect and reject fraud well before it reaches such colossal proportions.

My conclusion is that CDMA holds the key to wireless networks with wireline quality and capacity. TDMA, like other narrowband solutions, is a technological dead end. As one observer put it, CDMA may be late, but at least it's worth waiting for. More importantly, it's the one technology likely to cause our grandchildren to joke about the "old days" -- when people still had phones on leashes.

Ira Brodsky is president of Datacomm Research Co., Wilmette, Ill., and a featured speaker at DCI's Internet Expo. His book, Wireless: The Revolution in Personal Telecommunications, is available from Artech House (Norwood, Mass.)

Copyright 1996, Telephony Magazine/PCS Edge