CDMA not dead…yet

The CDMA death-watch has received a modest reprieve courtesy of ABI Research in its report titled CDMA Is Not Dead Yet, which claims that worldwide EvDO Rev A subscriber numbers ramped up more than eightfold between Q2 2007 and Q2 2008. For Canada, that means plans for Telus Mobility and Bell Canada to overlay their CDMA networks with HSPA should suffice - for now."Telus has been in the CDMA business for a long time with established network infrastructure and systems," says ABI report author and research analyst Khor Hwai Lin in conversation with Report on Wireless. "It doesn't make economical sense for the operator to abandon its old game and move to GSM."There are, however, some advantages for Telus to move to the GSM-based standard, according to the ABI analyst. "Telus is seeing revenue potential from HSPA, particularly roaming services during the 2010 Winter Olympics," she says.Bell and Telus spent more than $1.6 billion on advanced wireless service (AWS) spectrum in the recent auction; this could be put in play to support GSM/HSPA handsets and give Rogers Wireless some head-to-head competition."We don't rule out the possibility of an operator manning both EvDO and HSPA networks - we've seen this in South Korea and India," says Khor Hwai Lin. "The potential for revenue is there. But migration to HSPA+ from CDMA is not the natural migration path, whereas migration to HSPA+ from GSM is. The CDMA migration path would be Rev A and Rev B. Basically, for any incumbent CDMA operators to adopt HSPA route would require new sets of network infrastructure - especially at the radio access portion."Canada's two incumbent CDMA operators have taken different approaches to the conundrum - at least in public. It seems clear that Telus is aware of the GSM threat and is going do something about it, just as it seems unclear as to what's occurring inside Bell's corporate suite."Telus will switch off CDMA," says Lawrence Surtees, VP and principal analyst in IDC Canada's communications research team. "Bell has been reluctant to talk about it, whereas Telus has been pretty clear. Darren has been upfront about it," adds Surtees, referring to the Telus CEO. "I first asked him about it over two years ago. At that time EvDO Rev A was rolling out - those higher speeds buy them some time."When to jump?With GSM as the accepted road-map it is only a matter of time before CDMA operators defect. But when would be the right time for a Telus or Bell to bail? The world's largest CDMA operator, Verizon Wireless, will wait until 4G to move to LTE (there is still talk of WiMAX, but that's something of a wild-card). As a result, UMB, which is Qualcomm's next generation, OFDM-based CDMA, will become a footnote to history."Rebuilding a wireless network is an expensive proposition," says Surtees. "This is not something that CDMA players want to enthusiastically jump into. They are just in the process of putting in their first and second iterations of 3G. But when they exhaust that, then they will have their eyes on HSDPA and Rogers. EvDO may dictate the timing, but in the end the only way to match Rogers is to bite the bullet."To some degree, the mobile divisions of Telus and Bell are better off making decisions together, which makes Bell's reticence the more confusing. They need each other for roaming in order to put up a fight against Rogers. The best guess is that, like Verizon and AT&T south of the border, Telus and Bell will move towards LTE for 4G. This also makes sense in terms of securing future North American roaming."Bell will have to get on the bandwagon," says Surtees. "In three to five years CDMA will evolve into something like GSM - the standards bodies for GSM and CDMA are discussing merging."Surtees, noting that more than 80% of the world's wireless subscribers are on GSM, says that with high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA), uploads and downloads will be more symmetrical, thus further pushing adoption. Meanwhile, WiMAX, as always, is waiting in the wings."Rogers Wireless will take the logical step to deploy HSPA+ or LTE," says Khor Hwai Lin. "But a few years back, Rogers and Bell went into joint venture to deploy pre-WiMAX networks to provide wireless internet connectivity nationwide. This gave a good indication that Canadian operators may be open for network sharing for eventual 4G deployments."Maybe. WiMAX has great potential for quad play in mobile broadband, but Inukshuk has questionable momentum, as do its ties with Clearwire in the US. For Rogers it might not make sense to dive further into a demanding technology with a major rival.

CDMA not dead…yet

News | 08/26/2008 6:39 pm EDT

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