The year in 3G: steady as she goes: it's been a good year for 3G overall, if you like market growth and tech-religion wars. The year also set the stage for some of 2007's key issues: cheaper hand-sets, mobile WiMAX and—yes, finally —the kickoff of 3G in China

Telecom Asia, Jan, 2007 by John C. Tanner

Another year, another slew of rollouts and stats wars in the 3G sector. The GSM Association (GSMA), the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) and the CDMA Development Group (CDG) have been hurling numbers and press releases at each other and the media.

One of the more interesting battles has been over operators crossing technology lines. Telstra's announcement at the end of 2005 that it intended to scrap its CDMA network in favor of W-CDMA--claiming it was more costeffective--sparked outrage on the part of the CDG. Telstra is still waiting for government approval of the plan, but in the meantime, Hutchison Australia's Orange CDMA network (briefly rebranded as 3 CDMA) was shut down in August this year.

The GSA said in November that 29 CDMA operators had either adopted GSM/W-CDMA in addition to their CDMA networks or--in most cases--as a replacement for CDMA. The CDG, meanwhile, claimed that "up to 39" GSM cellcos had either deployed cdma2000 1x or were planning to do so (although not at the expense of existing GSM systems, a fact the CDG didn't refute but didn't call attention to in its press release).

The CDG also crowed over the effects of mobile number portability on Japan's mobile market. In November, the first full month after MNP rules were enacted, 1x EV-DO operator KDDI accounted for 82% of total net subscriber adds, while NTT DoCoMo actually lost more subscribers than it gained for the first time in memory.

And you thought the religious wars were over.

Whatever. At the end of the day, it's been a decent showing for 3G in 2006, according to the latest figures from the CDG, GSMA and 3G Today. W-CDMA subscriber numbers have grown from 49 million worldwide at the end of 2005 to 83.6 million as of October 31, 2006. 1x EV-DO subscribers have gone from 26.6 million to 44.4 million in the same time period.

However, the real show-stopper has been the commercial arrival of HSDPA and EV-DO Rev A, both of which take GSM and CDMA to the next level in terms of data speeds. Arguably HSDPA has been the more successful of the two, with 89 commercial launches as of December, compared to just two EV-DO Rev A systems going live. Not too bad for a technology with no handsets and terminals limited mainly to PC cards for now.

That said, both HSDPA and Rev A are in the interesting position of serving as a wide-area mobile broadband solution well ahead of the first commercial launches for that other anytime/anywhere mobile broadband technology, mobile WiMAX.

What about WIMAX?

Which brings us to the other tech debate that could define the 3G space in 2007: to what extent will 3G and mobile WiMAX (802.16e) co-exist?

Qualcomm execs such as Paul Jacobs and Jeff Belk have claimed for several years that mobile WiMAX has little value in a world covered by HSDPA and EV-DO Rev A, as well as their upcoming incarnations under future technology migrations by the 3GPP and 3GPP2. Even Ericsson--which entered into a cooperation deal with WiMAX champion Intel last month--isn't fully convinced at mobile WiMAX's chances.

"Fixed WiMAX has a clear role to play, but with mobile WiMAX, I'm not so sure," says Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg. "Mobile WiMAX is really just another radio technology ... it doesn't bring anything that's not already available."

Naturally, WiMAX proponents disagree. Dr Hwan Chung, VP of Samsung's mobile WiMAX marketing strategy group, insists mobile WiMAX will deliver its promise of affordable prices through economies of scale, and that there are a number of potential customers that would deploy mobile WiMAX, from greenfield operators and operators that don't have 3G licenses to cable TV companies.

"Next year we will see anywhere from ten to 20 operators deploy mobile WiMAX," he says. "Even Sprint, which already has EV-DO Rev A, is deploying it next year."

Yossi Shabat, senior VP, international, for wireless broadband vendor SOMA Networks, sees developing markets as a major opportunity for mobile WiMAX--as a home-based service, ironically, either as DSL in-fill in urban markets or as connectivity for underserved rural areas.

"People in these markets won't use HSDPA for home connectivity," he says.

While fixed WiMAX (802.16d) serves the same market--and has in fact seen a growing number of deployments across Asia--Shabat points out that 802.16d doesn't upgrade to 16e. "Besides, 16e for now isn't going to have much mobility anyway, since initial coverage will be sporadic and the certification process for interoperability isn't yet ready" he says.

The other chief development for 3G in 2007 could be the quest for the mass market. With 3G handsets still at the higher end of the price tier, the GSMA in October kicked off its "3G For All" initiative, which borrowed a page from its emerging market Emerging Market Handset (EMH) initiative by tendering handset vendors to make a 3G handset cheap enough to drive mass market of 3G without sacrificing functionality.

The fact that Motorola--which won both tenders under the EMH initiative--declined to bid for the 3G handset tender has raised a few eyebrows, with Mobile Handset Analyst (published by Informa Telecoms & Media) declaring the news "a major blow to the GSMA's ambitions for the project". That said, the GSMA says it has received tenders from other Tier 1 handset makers (while declining to ID any of the bidders).