Telecom Outlook 2003

December 11, 2002
And now, G-WCDMA 3G standard joins the party!

SINGAPORE -- As if three 3G standards, W-CDMA, CDMA2000 and TD-SCDMA weren't enough! Now, G-WCDMA, a new 3G standard, recently announced by Nokia, has joined the party.

According to Nokia, G-WCDMA is an enhancement to current W-CDMA networks and is completely based on open 3GPP standards. It is not a new network as such, but significantly improves the data rate, response time and capacity performance of current W-CDMA networks.

Today, there is no need for enhanced G-WCDMA. W-CDMA has plenty of untapped capacity. However, it is important that network technology choices made today are sustainable, providing a clear and cost efficient evolution path. As Nokia is committed to open, internationally interoperable W-CDMA systems, it wanted to confirm the global availability of this important W-CDMA evolution step within few years when real mass market mobile IP multimedia takes off.

G-WCDMA is a descriptive name for two important 3GPP features, DSCH (downlink shared packet channel) and HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) that will improve W-CDMA downlink performance (i.e., from the base station to the terminal) for streaming, interactive and background service classes. In practice, this means that G-WCDMA will provide better quality of service (QoS) through:

• Higher data rates,
• Shorter service response time, and
• Improved traffic capacity

As G-WCDMA offer better performance and cost efficiency than any other 3G technology, it is the natural evolution path for those GSM operators that already have chosen W-CDMA, and the best choice for cdma2000-1X operators when they have to invest to transit from their narrowband 2.5G networks to wideband 3G in order to meet the demand of real mass market mobile IP multimedia.

G-WCDMA is not a Nokia proprietary solution as it is based on an open 3GPP standard. Nokia believes that all major W-CDMA vendors will have these G-WCDMA components -- DSCH and HSDPA -- on their roadmaps.