Business sense, not common sense
A single cellular radio standard makes common sense but not business sense. Ericsson's On magazine (external link) this issue describes many reasons why operators will continue working different, incompatible cellular schemes across the globe. In years past a single standard (internal link) seemed absolutely necessary given the growth of different wireless systems. Today's mobile handsets, though, are becoming so versatile that they may soon adopt to any wireless scheme found. Without changing expensive infrastructure a carrier could thus operate several different technologies in a single country. A benefit to customers, a benefit to the carrier. Read more below and then at the On site.:
"Operators would often choose a standard because they felt it gave them an advantage over the competition,” says Yankee's Marshall. Now, the technology split in each nation and region varies enormously. At one extreme, the GSM family has a monopoly in Europe, with CDMA holding a similar position in South Korea.
But Brazil, India, Australia and Japan and other countries, competing network standards are surviving the transition to 3G. Other factors have come into play in markets such as Australia -- where CDMA was adopted because of its superior coverage capabilities," says Marshall. "In Japan, PDC is the 2G technology, so operators could effectively go either way. NTT DoCoMo is hot on WCDMA and KDDI is CDMA2000,"says Marshall.
There are a variety of reasons why neighboring network operators will opt for incompatible hardware. Market advantage is one, legacy issues [existing, older systems] are another, regulatory issues a third." Some have roaming agreements where they want others to roam on their networks, and some don’t want competitors roaming on their networks," says In-Stat’s Nogee.
This despite the fact that commentators such as the Yankee Group's Marshall say that, technically, CDMA technology is more cost-effective and easier to implement. But, he emphasizes, technical issues are not a useful gauge for strategic decisions.
So, technology is not the deciding factor over operators'choice. For all that, mobile telecommunications will never again be the patchwork it once was. Initially, there will be teething problems in those countries and regions with more than one technology. "There will be some limitations in terms of interoperability and roaming," says Marshall. But it is unlikely that there will be one standard across the globe: "There really is no reason to have just one," says In-Stat's Nogee.
But probably not for the eight or 10 standards we once had. Currently Japan, Europe and the U.S. have different TV standards, and that has worked just fine." For all that, the situation will settle. Twin networks will remain in some countries, says Marshall. "However," he says, "over time I think that we will see increased convergence on the device side so that it becomes less of an issue." Ultimately, then, handsets will be the great leveller, making network issues transparent to the user, as they should be.