EDGE is no longer a question mark according to Ericsson

date: December 23, 2001

Operator doubts about the future of EDGE as a worthwhile investment have now been answered. "EDGE is going ahead. It is no longer a question mark: it is an exclamation mark!" says Bo Langemark, who manages Ericsson's EDGE marketing program.

EDGE enables the transmission of large amounts of data at 384 kilobits per second and is classified as 3G technology by the ITU.

The decision at the beginning of the month by US operator Cingular to invest in EDGE technology, joining AT&T Wireless and VoiceStream, means that the business is assured. There will now be the terminals, infrastructure and multi-vendor support that make EDGE a strong investment not only in the US but also in Latin America, Europe, Asia and the rest of the world.

The technology exhaustion factor felt by operators presented with a host of choices involving GSM, GPRS and WCDMA networks can now be alleviated because EDGE makes business sense - it is cost efficient and simple to implement according to Ericsson.

The most compelling argument for EDGE is that it has three times the datacom capacity of GPRS and that means it can handle many more subscribers and a huge amount of data traffic. It is imperative for US operators to increase spectrum efficiency because the current spectrum situation is so tight. In Europe, the growing popularity of the Mobile Internet will put pressure on network capacity, even when GPRS and WCDMA are rolled out.

Langemark stresses that EDGE is a complement to WCDMA because those networks will focus on the areas of highest population density, leaving rural areas in large countries relying on GSM/GPRS networks that cannot carry the same level of service. However with the EDGE add-on to GPRS even remote areas will be able to get WCDMA-style services and subscribers will not know the difference. Operators offering this seamless network will have the advantage.

The simplicity of EDGE is another factor in its favor. It is the natural extension of GSM/GPRS and operators only need EDGE-capable transceiver hardware in base stations and new software that can be installed remotely. EDGE is then ready to go.

So the short term choice for operators is: Do I install EDGE technology now or later? If they are adding capacity (transceivers) for GSM/GPRS it makes sense to take new transceivers that carry GPRS improvements and EDGE. The coding schemes CS1 and CS2 are currently in use for GPRS. Coding Schemes CS3 and CS4 can be used with the new transceivers, and so can EDGE.

The advantage of these added coding schemes is that they will add an average of 20 percent data capacity. "This added throughput value far exceeds the added costs for the transceivers and the good thing is that all GPRS handsets out there can use it right away," says Langemark.

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