but whatever it is, it will be interesting. Burton Smith is a very bright guy who pioneered multithreading computing first at Denelcor, and then Tera, which bought Cray from SGI and adopted its name. He is the founder of the company which is today called Cray, but the original Cray company was, of course, founded by Seymore Cray.
Burton always reads broadly and thinks broadly. When designing a supercomputer he deals with every issue, from VLSI technology, Architecture, Operating Systems, and Compilers and Applications. He enthusiastically interacts with many experts, in many areas, and attains a very deep understanding of the issues.
The ITU (International Telecommunications Union--the standards setting body) has defined 3G as able to support certain data rates (in two phases) AND being deployed in a certain spectrum. Since cdmaOne operators (Sprint, Verizon, all Korean telecom, KDDI in Japan) can upgrade within spectrum (to cdma2000) they do not meet ITU's definition, even though they meet ITU's capability.
Of these the Korean operators have already begun to offer cdma2000: Sprint, Verizon, and KDDI are scheduled to offer service later this year.
The second phase of cdma2000, called 1xEv will be offered next year and provide 2.4 Mbits peak performance.
In addition, Nextel has also said they would upgrade to cdma2000 (while continuing to offer iDEN, its current service.)
WCDMA, the European-Japanese variant is delayed. But the world will not wait (although the Europeans may).
So 3G technology is alive and well, but in this case upgrades will come before new deployments because of the low cost increase in voice capacity that cdma2000 offers over cdmaOne.
First of all, 1X (150Kbit/s in each direction) is going to be rapidly deployed since the technology simultaneously doubles the number of phone calls (and also increases battery life) and is a cheap upgrade. Korea, Japan, and US will deploy as soon as the technology is ready. The chips will be in prodoction this year, and the infrastructure vendors will probably be ready to ship upgrades in second half of 2001.
Second, both Ford (in joint venture w/Qualcomm) and GM are going to be using CDMA for telematics for model year 2002 (fall 2001) cars. This is going to cause their service providers to upgrade old analog service and perhaps increase the quality of coverage.
Third, the successor Qualcomm technology HDR which will support 2.4 Mbits/sec peak (600Kb sustained) will have chips available in 2001.
Finally, there is talk of a successor to HDR which will be announced in the next year which is several times HDRs performance.
BTW, Handspring is a Qualcomm licensee.
Slashdot Mirror
but whatever it is, it will be interesting. Burton Smith is a very bright guy who pioneered multithreading computing first at Denelcor, and then Tera, which bought Cray from SGI and adopted its name. He is the founder of the company which is today called Cray, but the original Cray company was, of course, founded by Seymore Cray.
Burton always reads broadly and thinks broadly. When designing a supercomputer he deals with every issue, from VLSI technology, Architecture, Operating Systems, and Compilers and Applications. He enthusiastically interacts with many experts, in many areas, and attains a very deep understanding of the issues.
Burton, best of luck at Microsoft.
Jon Solworth
The ITU (International Telecommunications Union--the standards setting body) has defined 3G as able to support certain data rates (in two phases) AND being deployed in a certain spectrum. Since cdmaOne operators (Sprint, Verizon, all Korean telecom, KDDI in Japan) can upgrade within spectrum (to cdma2000) they do not meet ITU's definition, even though they meet ITU's capability. Of these the Korean operators have already begun to offer cdma2000: Sprint, Verizon, and KDDI are scheduled to offer service later this year. The second phase of cdma2000, called 1xEv will be offered next year and provide 2.4 Mbits peak performance. In addition, Nextel has also said they would upgrade to cdma2000 (while continuing to offer iDEN, its current service.) WCDMA, the European-Japanese variant is delayed. But the world will not wait (although the Europeans may). So 3G technology is alive and well, but in this case upgrades will come before new deployments because of the low cost increase in voice capacity that cdma2000 offers over cdmaOne.
First of all, 1X (150Kbit/s in each direction) is going to be rapidly deployed since the technology simultaneously doubles the number of phone calls (and also increases battery life) and is a cheap upgrade. Korea, Japan, and US will deploy as soon as the technology is ready. The chips will be in prodoction this year, and the infrastructure vendors will probably be ready to ship upgrades in second half of 2001. Second, both Ford (in joint venture w/Qualcomm) and GM are going to be using CDMA for telematics for model year 2002 (fall 2001) cars. This is going to cause their service providers to upgrade old analog service and perhaps increase the quality of coverage. Third, the successor Qualcomm technology HDR which will support 2.4 Mbits/sec peak (600Kb sustained) will have chips available in 2001. Finally, there is talk of a successor to HDR which will be announced in the next year which is several times HDRs performance. BTW, Handspring is a Qualcomm licensee.