Mobile working Toolkit

GSM group declares victory in standards war

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Victory,
3g

Staff, CNETAsia CNETAsia

Published: 25 Sep 2003 08:55 BST

In a few years, most people in the world using a phone to watch streaming video or for any high-speed mobile data service will be doing it on a GSM phone, said the head of the group championing the standard.

The GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard for 3G (third generation) phones will dominate globally, according to the chief executive of the group backing the standard, the GSM Association's Rob Conway.

GSM's 3G standard, called Wideband CDMA (WCDMA), has been re-branded "3GSM".

"In 2008, there is going to be 3GSM all over the place. If you want to roam, 3GSM is the only way to do that," Conway said yesterday.

Eighty-five percent of the world's operators have committed to WCDMA as the natural progression from voice-based GSM, said Conway, with competing standards such as CDMA2000 1X EV-DO distant runners-up in the 3G battle.

According to the association, about 99.7 percent of the world's population has adopted GSM, with 594 operators in 204 countries. Thirty percent of the world's GSM operators come from Asia Pacific. The region currently has 370 million GSM users, accounting for 41 percent of the world's total subscribers, according to the association.

"Six new subscribers are added every second in the region," he said, with more than 40 3GSM launches are expected before 2004.

However, many of these launches are taking place only after long delays, caused by the operator's lack of confidence in both subscriber take-up and in the technical ability of the handsets.

A handset problem which makes WCDMA handsets incompatible with 2G services such as GPRS was on the way to being fixed, said Conway.

Figures from technology research firm Allied Business Intelligence (ABI) support Conway's bullishness.

Today, GSM dominates with more than 850 million subscribers, far more than the rival CDMA, with only about 150 million subscribers, said an ABI report.

As it stands today, the rival CDMA2000 1X EV-DO standard has caught on much faster than 3GSM. There are about 20 existing live WCDMA and CDMA2000 1X EV-DO networks competing for subscribers.

For now, the adoption rate will remain higher among CDMA users for EV-DO networks. For example, operator SK Telecom in Korea has nearly 1.5 million EV-DO subscribers while Japan's NTT DoCoMo has only one third of that number on its 3GSM network, said the report.

However, due to the overwhelming number of GSM users, WCDMA subscribers will outnumber those for EV-DO, said the report.

"This trend will reverse, as technical hurdles are crossed and operators turn the switch on WCDMA networks in Europe," ABI analyst Kenil Vora said in the report.

Operators backing 3GSM include US-based AT&T Wireless, UK-based Vodafone Group, Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo and China's dominant mobile operator China Mobile.

China's home-grown cellular standard -- TD-SCDMA (time division-synchronous CDMA) -- will be "complementary" to 3GSM as it uses a protocol similar to 3GSM, said Conway.

The GSM Association is a trade group that represents GSM mobile operators worldwide. Its members include more than 568 mobile operators and 132 manufacturers and suppliers.