Special Report: Standards Rule: Wireless

In the U.S. wireless services market at the end of 2005, CDMA led with 97.64 million connections, followed by GSM with 70.96 million connections. TDMA had 10.13 million connections, according to Gartner.

Key standards for wireless communications predate modern computers and the Internet. Because the public airwaves are limited and require cooperation to achieve service reliability, government regulators spent much of the 20th century walking the fine line between encouraging innovative wireless applications and protecting the interests of individuals and organizations.

Sometimes regulators have driven the adoption of new standards, and sometimes standards bodies (or industry consortia playing that role) have driven regulators. The end result has been a wide variety of mobile computing and communication standards. In some cases, these standards provide the glue that facilitates interoperability. In other cases, divergent standards-based architectures have thrown up obstacles to interoperability.

In the future, we expect to see an array of wireless systems, including 3G, Wi-Fi and WiMAX, tied together by higher-layer standards like IMS. Integrating those technologies in a way that allows a wide range of devices to move transparently across networks won't be easy, but as standards evolve, that hope is likely to be realized.

802.11

The first IEEE 802.11 specification provides a great case study for all that is right and much of what is wrong with open standards. The 802.11 standards pioneers faced many obstacles, including immature technology, uncertainty about market needs and vendor politics. The result? An arduous seven-year process yielding a standard that was inadequate in nearly every way. Still, while full of compromises, 802.11 transformed the wireless LAN market from a sleepy, high-margin vertical technology to a low-cost, higher performance network technology that millions of people use every day.

Today's wireless standards battle is being waged most vociferously in the 802.11n committee, which has agreed, in principle, on a next-generation WLAN spec that promises to push throughput beyond 100 Mbps. The technical foundation for 802.11n's fast throughput is MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output), a wireless system design that uses multiple radios and antennas, together with spatial multiplexing, to boost performance. MIMO was first commercialized by Airgo Networks, whose founders are among the technology's foremost pioneers. Airgo may yet become a leader in the 11n silicon market, but if it does, it won't be because its competitors made it easy.In an odd twist of events, the leading wireless silicon vendors dropped their competitive gloves in 2005 and made a collective end-run around Airgo, producing a specification that blurred the lines between an open process associated with standards bodies and the backroom dealings of an industry consortia (see Will 802.11n Change Your World? for background).

All of this was accomplished within the procedural rules of IEEE, though the final play hasn't been dealt. There's still some credibility left at IEEE, which means legitimate issues are more difficult to ignore than they might have been during the early days of 802.11.

The latest 802.11n development involves so-called draft-11n products that have begun to find their way onto shelves at big-box retailers. Chip-makers Broadcom and Marvel Technology have teamed with consumer-oriented equipment manufacturers like Buffalo Technology, Netgear and Linksys to unleash these new products onto the market with no guarantees they will be upgradable to adhere to the final 802.11n standard. Worse, the products aren't interoperable, they don't deliver compelling performance improvements over existing 802.11g offerings, and they interfere with legacy 802.11 networks. The only positive spin is that the deficiencies of current offerings are likely to push improvements in second-generation designs, which presumably will be compatible with the final 11n standard. We expect the final spec by year's end with rapid consumer adoption, followed by some enterprise deployment in 2007.

» IEEE standardIMS

While 802.11 represents a unified open standard that serves as the foundation--current and future--for wireless data inside the enterprise, the wireless WAN market is much more fragmented, an amalgam of proprietary and open standards, some well-established and some still emerging. Because wide-area wireless is more about procuring services than building infrastructure, enterprise IT professionals have much less control.

Eventually, it's likely that most wide-area voice and data services will converge around an IP transport infrastructure combined with the IMS (IP Multimedia System) multimedia architecture. That will likely make lower-layer protocols less important to end users while enhancing interoperability, not only among alternative mobile networks but also between mobile and fixed networks. IMS, which is being driven by 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project), is widely considered to be the foundation for next-generation fixed/mobile convergence.

» I3GPP standard

UMTSThe infrastructure over which mobile bits will travel is very much up in the air, if you will. Contenders for mobile broadband supremacy include UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System), CDMA2000 (Code Division Multiple Access) and Mobile WiMAX. It's tough to imagine a single unified standard--each of these has significant industry support--but it's a good bet that 20 years from now, one of the three will be nothing more than a historical footnote. As to which one, we could make an argument for any of the three winning or losing.

UMTS, also known as 3GSM, is based on the wideband CDMA interface. The system has been deployed worldwide and in the United States by Cingular/AT&T. Data services are currently being delivered using HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology that delivers a broadband data experience with real-world IP throughput approaching 1 Mbps, which is pretty hot in the world of mobile data.

» UMTS

CDMA2000

Code Division Multiple Access 2000 is an alternative 3G mobile data standard that has been deployed in the United States by Verizon Wireless and Sprint. It also has significant market traction in other parts of the world, especially in the Pacific Rim. Unlike the more open UMTS standard, CDMA2000 directions are heavily influenced by Qualcomm, which invented the technology and holds a broad patent portfolio for core elements.On the other hand, Qualcomm has developed a rich ecosystem for the technology, which facilitates the development of CDMA2000-compatible hard- ware and software. The company also has worked to open the standard, and there is some speculation that it will eventually be aligned with the IEEE 802.20 standard, once it emerges. IEEE 802.20 is a mobile broadband standard, somewhat of a competitor to 802.16e--much like 802.5 Token Ring was a competitor to the existing 802.3 Ethernet.

On June 15, Steve Mills, the chairman of the IEEE standards board, announced that the 802.20 working group had been suspended until Oct. 1, 2006, because of contentiousness and possible irregularities in operation. We think they will eventually get their act together and reconvene the group--but it looks like a rocky road.

» 3GPP2 standard

WiMAX

The sleeper is WiMAX. Widely hyped by industry leaders like Intel and nurtured by the WiMAX Forum, the technology will initially enjoy success as a multipoint fixed wireless solution, a broadband Internet access alternative to DSL and cable, and a standardized approach to metropolitan backhaul. However, IEEE 802.16e, also known as Mobile WiMAX, represents a potential competitor to UMTS and CDMA2000, perhaps even to Wi-Fi.Unlike competing platforms, WiMAX was designed from the start as an IP network technology, providing an optimal mobile network environment that is arguably more hospitable to emerging mobile applications. But garnering commitments from established mobile carriers won't be easy, nor will it be a breeze for upstarts to displace them.

» WiMAX Forum

» IEEE 802.16

Dave Molta, an NWC senior technology editor, can be reached at [email protected].