Wireless Review

January 15, 2001

By Barb Lee
Sprint's 1X View

 

Sprint PCS is confident of both its network and technology as it gets ready to offer 1X services.
As Sprint PCS moves toward offering next-generation services, it cites its CDMA all-PCS network as a major advantage in the race to 3G. "If history provides any insight into the future, Sprint PCS and its single-band, all-digital network will be as adaptable to 3G migration as it has been in offering first services to its nationwide market," said Oliver Valente, Sprint PCS CTO. "Sprint PCS will be able to deploy the technology ubiquitously by simply plugging in new 3G channel cards to its existing base stations and adding some new software. We anticipate our roll-out to be accomplished with relative ease and with less expense than any other of the competing and less-3G-friendly technologies used by competing national carriers."
Unlike some consolidated or merged networks that operate at multiple frequency bands and on multiple technology platforms, the Sprint PCS network doesn't need to rely on multiple back-office support systems. In fact, some carriers require more than a dozen different billing systems because of disparate overlay networks and mergers between operators with different back-office systems.
Another advantage Sprint PCS is touting: Except in a few select markets, it has enough available spectrum to meet expected 3G demands. Sprint PCS will begin offering what it has dubbed "3G 1X" later this year. Sprint's 3G 1X - more commonly known as CDMA2000 1XRTT, or CDMA2000 1X for short - is part of the IS-2000 family of standards that has been accepted by ITU, the worldwide standards body dictating and legitimizing the specifications of 3G. Sprint's 3G 1X offering will begin commercial deployment in the second half of 2001, with complete wide-scale deployment slated for the end of June 2002.
The 1X-capable handsets that will operate on existing 2G networks will be available at the earliest in 3Q01. Several carriers already have committed to make handsets using 3G chipsets. Sprint PCS anticipates more vendors joining before the handsets are available for widespread distribution. Many experts believe that the sooner the vendors begin seeding the market with the 1X handsets, the better for wireless carriers in terms of capacity once 3G 1X infrastructure is deployed.
Sprint PCS currently is testing 3G 1X technology with major network carriers such as Lucent, Motorola, Nortel and Samsung. In March 2000, it made its first successful call in North America, with Samsung and Qualcomm, in the Sprint PCS Technology Integration Center. Following another year of field trials, Sprint's 3G 1X technology is expected to be implemented in about 4,000 cities on the nationwide network.
Costs Readily Recovered The total cost for Sprint PCS' national 3G roll-out is estimated at a comparatively low $700 million to $800 million, an investment that should be regained readily in terms of greater consumer usage and extended business applications, Valente said. Through the added voice capacity - up to double the 2G capacity - as well as the higher-data-speed services, the 3G network is one that "we know we can sell and make a return on our investment," he said.
"Over the next two to three years, the 3G speeds will rapidly accelerate into multimegabit-per-second speeds that will accelerate all types of applications and services in the mobile wireless environment," Valente continued. "Consumers will have more of a desktop experience in the handset. Once the high speeds are available, the playing field really opens up." Not only will consumers be able to browse the Web at far faster rates, but Valente projects that by the first half of 2002, handsets will evolve that will include more color screens, video transfers, photographs, music downloads and a whole new set of service capabilities.
"All in all, the 3G handset will be a very cool end-user device," he said. Who Will Use It? But is there realistically a market for this latest innovation in data technology? Warren Wilson, Summit Strategies senior analyst, said that high-speed data and data enhancements alone may not win the U.S. consumer. According to Wilson, people in the U.S. telecommunications industry tend to look to Europe and Asia for indications on how the U.S. market might develop.
In those markets, wireless data has been - to a large extent - a consumer-driven service. Therefore, early speculation in the United States was that individual consumers here also would drive the wireless-data market. This may not hold true, however, because of major differences in what Eastern markets are able to offer the end user compared to what is available in the United States, Wilson said. "In Europe and Asia, where PC ownership and Internet access are less common than in the United States, wireless handsets have given many people their first taste of e-mail and the Internet," he said. "They're probably more accepting of the phones' tiny screens and keypads than U.S. consumers, who are used to doing e-mail and Web surfing with large PC monitors and full keyboards. So consumer-focused wireless-data services probably won't see the same adoption rates in the United States as they have elsewhere." "On the other hand, many U.S. businesses have already Web-enabled key applications; for them, wireless is a logical next step - though it's not necessarily easy or inexpensive," Wilson said. "So we expect that in the United States, wireless data will be more business-driven than consumer-driven.
" Technology Advantage Sprint does seem confident that its technology offers an advantage in the 3G race over the TDMA and GSM carriers that are moving toward a WCDMA 3G solution reached via GPRS and EDGE. "In terms of competitive advantages, the Sprint PCS 3G technology will be more robust, faster, and more seamlessly deployed on our network," Valente said. "We are not particularly concerned about GPRS solutions. Although they do increase data throughput, they don't enhance voice capacity, and the battery performance is greatly depleted by the data drain. On the contrary, the three major benefits of the Sprint PCS 3G migration are: up to double the voice capacity of the network; increased data speeds 10-fold; and increased battery-performance life in standby mode up to 50%." Looking ahead, Sprint PCS expects to roll out 1XEV DO to its network in early 2003.
One thing is sure: Sprint PCS and other carriers are betting that the market will be ready for 3G services and the speeds it will offer. "Wireless is the newest frontier and American businesses, particularly, are looking to make a leap from wired Internet to wireless Internet," Wilson said. "The stage is set for that leap."