Is Europe worried about CDMA carriers?

[Fire14]

Orange Chief Sends a Message Cooperation Among European Carriers Seen As Critical

European mobile phone carriers will increasingly work together to set industry norms in an effort to preserve the global leadership role they built with the GSM standard, the chief executive of Orange said Wednesday.

The executive, Sanjiv Ahuja, said in an interview in Barcelona that in the same way that mobile phones took off across Europe in the 1990s because of the single technical standard, telecommunications operators would agree on common principles to offer new features to attract business.

But Ahuja said they would not cooperate on retail pricing strategies for these services, as the European Commission has accused some of doing on charges for calls made on rivals' networks, so-called roaming fees.

"I don't fully understand what's being proposed by the European Commission," he said of its recent promise to force operators to cut roaming prices, "but what I see is a market that is competitive, aggressive and growing. All the fair market practices are working."

The commission antitrust officials are also investigating T- Mobile and Vodafone in Germany and O2 and Vodafone in Britain for overcharging on calls across borders. And in December, the three major French mobile operators were fined a combined 534 million, or $635 million, by the French government for colluding to set prices on phone calls for five years starting in 1997 and ordered to reduce the wholesale prices of calls.

Orange's share of the fine was 256 million. The GSM Association, which represents the carriers on policy issues, on Wednesday announced global projects to combat mobile phone spam and to share video on phones. Without such collaboration, subscribers might not be able to combat junk e-mail carried by rival networks or watch certain shows from distant operators on their phones. Watching video is one of many advanced new services that carriers are counting on to raise revenue.

Wednesday's moves follow the agreement among European and Asian carriers announced on Monday that would let customers from different GSM carriers conduct rapid-fire text chats if their networks have signed mutual instant messaging "interoperability" agreements, as Orange and Vodafone have.

"We expect it will be a big success," Ahuja said about the instant messaging accord. "As that becomes successful, it will lead to other examples emerging like that. The GSMA is working on other things.

"I think we as an industry learned some lessons. Interoperability is absolutely critical for the adoption of new services. We did that very well with voice. With SMS, we did that. In some of the other areas, we could have done better, like MMS," a reference to multimedia messaging, which has not been popular among consumers. Responding to criticism that Europe has lost its telecommunications edge since the years when GSM swept the Continent, Ahuja maintained that it had not. "I still believe Europe is the leader in this industry," he said, citing advances in providing television and other entertainment over cellphone networks. "Japan and Korea will continue to innovate. But IM is another example of leadership coming out of Europe."

"The other thing that keeps us innovative is the very competitive environment Europe is full of strong, tough competitors," he said.

Ahuja said the number of likely job cuts at Orange, which is a unit of France Telecom, has not been calculated based on Tuesday's announcement that France Telecom would eliminate 23,000 positions because of competition for land-line customers.

Also on Tuesday, Ahuja was added to a nine-person management committee led by Didier Lombard, the France Telecom chairman and chief executive, that Ahuja said would help the company make "more expeditious and agile" decisions.

Ahuja said Orange was on track or ahead of schedule in recruiting customers for its fast data subscriptions on the most advanced networks, called third-generation or 3G, with 1.3 million signed up in France and Britain. The company has customers in 15 other countries.

In addition, Orange's efforts to attract business customers, both large and small, resulted in revenue gains last year that were double the industry average in percentage terms, he said.

[jones]

There's 3 Flavors of 3G CDMA:
CDMA2000
WCDMA
TD-SCDMA
which one will win depends on Europe.

[walkguru]

Wirelessly posted (Walkguru's: Nokia6682/2.0 (3.01.1) SymbianOS/8.0 Series60/2.6 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

I think gsm is a given over there. Cdma no chance.

[jimbo]

Originally Posted by walkguru Wirelessly posted (Walkguru's: Nokia6682/2.0 (3.01.1) SymbianOS/8.0 Series60/2.6 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0) I think gsm is a given over there. Cdma no chance.

Ummm, the upgrade path for GSM is a form of CDMA. How can it not have a chance, when it is currently being deployed by European operators?

[jones]

WCDMA is added to GSM,
and is reverse compatible.
What he really means is CDMA2000
is No Chance in Europe.

A lot here confuse 2G CDMA
w/ 3G CDMA.

3G GSM is WCDMA.
Europe Developed its own CDMA,
not worried about it.

The Fight is Now
WCDMA Vs CDMA2000 Vs TD-SCDMA

The Thread title is wrong to begin with.
It should be
Is Europe afraid of CDMA2000?

[ShoresGuy]

CDMA2000 will not become a mainstream option for Europe. UMTS (aka WCDMA - same meaning) is already being heavily invested in. Some European countries do have CDMA networks (i.e. Romania) as well but they won't impact the development of UMTS since the license auctions were already overly expensive.

We won't see CDMA2000 period....end of story.

[agentHibby]

I agree with that one ShoresGuy.

I can't see any of the Europeren providers going to CDMA2000.

[Bugwart]

Europe is a much larger continent than is Western Europe.

WESTERN Europe will likely remain the dominion of wCDMA, however the rest of Europe has many CDMA2000 networks.

[jones]

What european countries are those?
They really mean the whole europe,
east or west.


http://www.coveragemaps.com/gsmposter_europe.htm

[ShoresGuy]

The following European countries have CDMA and CDMA 450:

http://www.cdg.org/worldwide/index.asp?h_area=2
http://www.cdg.org/technology/3g/cdma450.asp

[coalminer]

Originally Posted by jones WCDMA is added to GSM, and is reverse compatible. What he really means is CDMA2000 is No Chance in Europe. A lot here confuse 2G CDMA w/ 3G CDMA. 3G GSM is WCDMA. Europe Developed its own CDMA, not worried about it. The Fight is Now WCDMA Vs CDMA2000 Vs TD-SCDMA The Thread title is wrong to begin with. It should be Is Europe afraid of CDMA2000?

Just so you are aware, UMTS is not added to GSM, it is a totally seperate network and in no way compatable with GSM, the only reason that the 3g phones that are available now are "backwards compatable" is because they actually contain 2 different radios, one for GSM, one for UMTS. In Europe for example, the UMTS networks are in the 2100mhz bands, here in the US, Cingular is just going to use the 1900mhz band for both.

Which is why it is possible to be in a call and do data at the same time, not hard to do when you are accessing 2 different networks.

There is one reason, and only one reason CDMA never had a chance in Europe, its because it belongs to an American company, thats why they decided to use the GSM standard. Can you imagine how rich Qualcomm would be today if they did decide to use CDMA instead of GSM????

But now there are CDMA networks popping up in Europe in the 450mhz band, I would hope they come up with some tri-band phones so that CDMA customers here can access those networks in the future.

[jones]

HArdware is added to GSM.
Though the phone has 2 Technology.
UMTS is using its own spectrum.
Like an Analog/CDMA phone,
GSM/umts phone.

Handoff between
GSM and WCDMA is No problem though.

[jones]

Originally Posted by ShoresGuy The following European countries have CDMA and CDMA 450: http://www.cdg.org/worldwide/index.asp?h_area=2 http://www.cdg.org/technology/3g/cdma450.asp

Iwas looking for the CDMA Numbers outside North America
so i guess this confirms it.

[walkguru]

Wirelessly posted (Walkguru's: Nokia6682/2.0 (3.01.1) SymbianOS/8.0 Series60/2.6 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

Originally Posted by jones WCDMA is added to GSM, and is reverse compatible. What he really means is CDMA2000 is No Chance in Europe. A lot here confuse 2G CDMA w/ 3G CDMA. 3G GSM is WCDMA. Europe Developed its own CDMA, not worried about it. The Fight is Now WCDMA Vs CDMA2000 Vs TD-SCDMA The Thread title is wrong to begin with. It should be Is Europe afraid of CDMA2000?

Yes, thats what i ment.

[jones]

There are 683 licensed GSM operators in 213 countries worldwide today.

In the year 2005, GSM added more than 81 million customers in the Americas alone compared to 30 million CDMA customers; worldwide, GSM added 391.9 million new customers, far exceeding the entire customer base of any other mobile technology.

[JR1]

Isn't cingular also going to add UTMS in the 850 band as well as the 1900 band?

[JR1]

Originally Posted by coalminer Just so you are aware, UMTS is not added to GSM, it is a totally seperate network and in no way compatable with GSM, the only reason that the 3g phones that are available now are "backwards compatable" is because they actually contain 2 different radios, one for GSM, one for UMTS. In Europe for example, the UMTS networks are in the 2100mhz bands, here in the US, Cingular is just going to use the 1900mhz band for both. Which is why it is possible to be in a call and do data at the same time, not hard to do when you are accessing 2 different networks. There is one reason, and only one reason CDMA never had a chance in Europe, its because it belongs to an American company, thats why they decided to use the GSM standard. Can you imagine how rich Qualcomm would be today if they did decide to use CDMA instead of GSM???? But now there are CDMA networks popping up in Europe in the 450mhz band, I would hope they come up with some tri-band phones so that CDMA customers here can access those networks in the future.

I thought UTMS and HSDPA could do voice and data at the same time without the use of the GSM band?

[ShoresGuy]

Originally Posted by JR1 Isn't cingular also going to add UTMS in the 850 band as well as the 1900 band?

Yes, they sure will. The reason why UMTS and HSDPA will be in the existing GSM 850/1900 bands for the US is because the FCC hasn't opened up a new frequency range for UMTS use. The 2100 Mhz block is still reserved for MSS (Mobile Satellite Service) purposes.

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by jones

what's PDC? and where does FOMA fit into here?

[Charlyee]

Originally Posted by Gabriel what's PDC? and where does FOMA fit into here?

I think PDC stands for Personal Digital Cellular, it is a TDMA-based Japanese standard operating in the 800 and 1500 MHz bands.

Do you mean FOMA or FDMA? If you mean FDMA, then I think it's use is minimal to none today. Wasn't FDMA used exclusively for analog cellular systems, even though in theory FDMA can also be used with digital? It was very inefficient anyway, so it got replaced by digital networks TDMA and CDMA.

If you mean FOMA, then I don't have a clue, maybe Jones Knows........

Just my 2 cents.

[jones]

GSM is TDMA and utilizes FDMA,
as way of Frequency Hopping.
As it Moves in Time slots,
it also Moves in Frequency.

[ShoresGuy]

Originally Posted by Gabriel what's PDC? and where does FOMA fit into here?

PDC and FOMA are 2 Japanese network standards developed and used solely in Japan.

PDC was developed as a 2G standard based on TDMA and located in the 800 Mhz band. At its peak, it had 80 million subscribers but that number has now dropped to 46 million due to newer standards being implemented.

FOMA was developed as Japan's and the world's first true 3G/UMTS network standard by NTT DoCoMo in 2001. It is compatible with regular 3G/UMTS networks used in other countries. At the moment, FOMA has 15 million subscribers in Japan and continues to grow as more and more Japanese users shift to 3G.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Digital_Cellular
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOMA
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/p...oma/index.html
http://www.eurotechnology.com/3G/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univers...global_roaming
http://www.umtsworld.com/technology/frequencies.htm

Graphics:

3G Statistics for Japan:




3G user numbers:
http://www.3gtoday.com/wps/PA_1_2_CR...l?rn=238598547
http://www.3gtoday.com/wps/PA_1_2_CR...?rn=1823764539
http://www.3gtoday.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLN4q3dAXJmMUbxBub6k eiijjCBXw98nNT9b31A_QLckMjyh0VFQH8vdLW/delta/base64xml/L3dJdyEvUUd3QndNQSEvNElVRS82XzJfRkw!?page=home
http://www.3gnewsroom.com/html/stats/index.shtml (older figures!!)

[Charlyee]

Originally Posted by ShoresGuy PDC and FOMA are 2 Japanese network standards developed and used solely in Japan. FOMA was developed as Japan's and the world's first true 3G/UMTS network standard by NTT DoCoMo in 2001. It is compatible with regular 3G/UMTS networks used in other countries. At the moment, FOMA has 15 million subscribers in Japan and continues to grow as more and more Japanese users shift to 3G.

Thanks Shores that explains. I knew about PDC but not about FOMA. I guess then I would ask why FOMA is not on the chart that Jones posted. At 15 million it should be between IDEN and Analog, right?

[ShoresGuy]

I don't know, it might have been left out since it's an exlusive network standard used solely by NTT DoCoMo.

[viewfly]

Originally Posted by Charlyee Thanks Shores that explains. I knew about PDC but not about FOMA. I guess then I would ask why FOMA is not on the chart that Jones posted. At 15 million it should be between IDEN and Analog, right?

When I looked at these charts last week in Japan, I assumed that FOMA numbers were just folded into wCDMA or UMTS numbers on top of GSM since that what FOMA is...UMTS

The DoMoCo phone I rented in Japan had UMTS and tri band GSM. It operated on DoMoCo's and Vodaphone's Japanese 3G network.

[Dogma]

Its a given that CDMA2000 makes more efficient use of spectrum, but that doesn't intern mean customers really care. As long as GSM can operate the same applications, and call block is not an issue, thats all they care. Carriers that are already knee deep in GSM are not going to up and decide to switch everything over to CDMA2000 even if they wanted to.

[Bugwart]

Originally Posted by viewfly When I looked at these charts last week in Japan, I assumed that FOMA numbers were just folded into wCDMA or UMTS numbers on top of GSM since that what FOMA is...UMTS The DoMoCo phone I rented in Japan had UMTS and tri band GSM. It operated on DoMoCo's and Vodaphone's Japanese 3G network.

FOMA was most likely folded into the UMTS numbers. This makes sense today, since NTT DoCoMo is making FOMA UMTS compatible.

[scotsboyuk]

I think Dogma hit the nail on the head; most customers don't care. Mobile geeks like us debate the pros and cons of GSM, CDMA, EVDO, UMTS, etc ad infinitum, but I doubt whether most Europeans will be terribly interested. Most people are probably more interested in whether the end product works rather than the technical details.

CDMA 2000 isn't going to be a factor worth considering in Europe, the networks have invested too heavily in GSM and WCDMA to bother with another standard. I think one also has to realise that there is massive interdependence in Europe; some companies own networks in more than one country and even those who don't have to contend with a great deal of travel between countries. A single unified standard isn't only desirable in Europe, it is necessary.

[jrip]

Originally Posted by jones There's 3 Flavors of 3G CDMA: CDMA2000 WCDMA TD-SCDMA which one will win depends on Europe.

Don't forget UMTS-TDCDMA. Sprint Nextel is taking a long hard look at this one for part of their 4G network.

[scotsboyuk]

@jrip

I was under the impression that 4G was something different to UMTS and other 3G standards.