In a spat over wireless technology proposals at the International Telecommunications Union, Ericsson (ERICY) is charging competitor Lucent Technologies (LU) with violating the integrity of the standards process.
In a statement issued Thursday, Ericsson said a Lucent representative serving as chairman on a key committee at the ITU made a "unilateral move" in withholding support of the Ericsson-backed Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, also know as Wideband CDMA.
In seeking one or more next-generation wireless standards, the ITU is juggling multiple technology recommendations from around the globe. From the US alone, there are several different proposals, including Wideband CDMA, TD-CDMA (Time-Division CDMA), and Wideband cdmaOne. Each builds on various current-generation technologies and networks already deployed and supported by the products of various vendors. These include Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), CDMA, and TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access). Observers think more than one is inevitable due to varying commercial technologies already in place worldwide.
Wireless systems like Wideband CDMA will be capable of carrying multimedia services such as video conferencing and wireless Internet and network access.
"The company voiced its shock and disappointment at what appears to be an 11th-hour effort within the T1 Committee, a wireless standards setting organization," read the Ericsson statement, "to derail one of the American submissions."
The chairman of the T1 committee, Lucent's Gerald Petterson, has proposed withholding support of the Wideband CDMA standard, Ericsson said, calling it "an unprecedented violation of the sanctity of the standards-setting process."
"As with all technology standards being proposed, Wideband CDMA has clearly fulfilled all the requirements established by the T1 committee," said John Giere, vice president of government relations for Ericsson, in the company's statement.
"We can only assume that this type of unsanctioned action at such a late date can only be motivated by commercial interests and, as such, would represent a flagrant misuse of the T1 process."
Ericsson said it was glad to see that a separate ITU adviser committee rejected the chairman's proposal, and urged the full T1 committee to do the same.
Neither company responded to requests for comment in time for this story. But one observer was not surprised by the tussle.
David Crowe, editor and publisher of International Cellular Networking Perspectives, said the real issue at hand is a commercial issue. "It's pretty obvious that Ericsson is getting into Wideband CDMA and they don't want to pay royalties to [the competing technology, Wideband cdmaOne] from Qualcomm (QCOM) any more than they have to."
The position of Lucent, with more of an interest in the Qualcomm technology, is the opposite, he said. Wideband CDMA is compatible with the existing network infrastructure of current Global System for Mobile Communications technology. "Lucent doesn't have a big presence in GSM, so there's no real motivation for them to promote it," Crowe said.
"That's really the critical issue when it comes to carriers. They have as much investment in networks as they do in radio equipment," Crowe said.
"They're jockeying for position, so they start playing a little rougher," Crowe said. "You can interpret what happened as a business motivation on Lucent's part but it's just an interpretation." Whether or not the T1 chairman crossed the line is not a judgment he can make, Crowe said.
"The bottom line is standards are not the place to resolve this kind of issue. Whether they're playing it a bit rough, standards organizations are never going to resolve what is basically a business issue."
It is rather in the marketplace, Crowe said, where the success or failure of such wireless technologies will be determined. "And it may well be more than one.
"The ITU has to seek unanimity and they're never going to get that on next-generation wireless. So they are going to end up choosing several strong technologies out of necessity."
