Cornered! is a blog devoted, most of the time anyway, to telecommunications: local and global issues, technology, people and trends from the perspective of someone who's been reporting, analysing and commenting on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition). Sometimes serious, sometimes flippant, sometimes frivolous. Controversial, analytical, informative, amusing, but never boring; a vehicle for examinations of important issues and observations on my encounters and experiences in an industry where polarised views and hyperbole are the norm.
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Cornered! GSM cellular turns twenty
Cornered! GSM cellular turns twenty | GSM cellular turns twenty |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Friday, 07 September 2007 | |
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Page 2 of 3 Today, the GSM family of technologies is claimed to account for 85 percent of the global mobile services market, which accounts for about 1.6 percent of global GDP. Telstra chose the AMPS technology developed in the US over the rival European TACS technology. When the time came to make a transition to digital technology the market had undergone a degree of deregulation and the choice of digital technology was in the hands of Austel (the forerunner of today's ACMA. Australia opted for GSM over the digital version of the AMPS technology (DAMPS), although when this decision was made (1990) there was no clear leader. The decision was, in retrospect, the right one (New Zealand chose DAMPS) and is now in the process of shutting down what has become an orphan network. Another possible contender was CDMA which had emerged from nowhere to become a credible international standard. Had it been a little more mature when the decision was taken it could well have been picked in preference to GSM. CDMA was developed by a then relatively small US company called Qualcomm which claimed significant advantages for it over both DAMPS and GSM. Much to the surprise of many the US standards bodies eventually recognised it as a standard. |
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