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Voice will be the main service for users
October 29, 2002
The main usage for 3G telephony will not be for data communications
but voice capacity because it allows so many more users per basestation,
according to PMC-Sierra, the specialist telecommunications chip
company.
"We're reaching 80 to 90 per cent capacity in some cases," said
Laurie Wallace, director of wireless products at PMC-Sierra, "the
need to upgrade the infrastructure is becoming quite urgent."
Wallace quotes surveys carried out by Merrill Lynch, Gartner Dataquest,
US Bancorp and Morgan Stanley which conclude 3G infrastructure will
take on average 19 per cent of the overall wireless infrastructure
market next year, and rising to 34 per cent in 2004, 44 per cent
in 2005 and over 50 per cent in 2006. Wallace said he thought basestation
manufacturers to ramp up their production next year, moving into
high volume production in 2004.
One benefit of the recession is that some of the big companies
are increasing their outsourcing. "Nokia is looking to outsource
more technology," said Wallace, "they're opening up standard interfaces
for competitors. One of the reasons why there are so few competitors
around is because of the lack of open standard interfaces."
As a result, Wallace said he expects to see far more market participants
and greater competition. In the US, Wallace said he thought AT&T
would go for the GSM enhancement technology EDGE. The only true
3G service in operation, said Wallace, is DoCoMo's WCDMA-based 3G
service in Japan which claims to achieve 384kbit/s data rates, said
Wallace.
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3G Motorola A920
