re: Vendors in Base Station Bust UpFrom an exec at a major subsystem supplier who doesnGÇÖt want to be quoted in public:
* Ericsson has been forced into this by NokiaGÇÖs initiative
* OBSAI is gaining momentum and Ericsson got scared of being left out in the cold
* The timeline for CPRI looks optimistic (the specification is planned to be available 2003, with compatible products on the market by the end of 2004)
* OBSAI specs will be available to members any day now
* The hardware market is going this way anyway. OEMs want the cheapest components and subsystems possible; even if they come from a sweatshop in the Far-East
* Note how the two big Chinese rivals are split: ZTE with OBSAI and Huawei with CPRI
* Note how the Siemens/NEC joint venture has a foot in both camps: Siemens with CPRI and NEC with OBSAI
re: Vendors in Base Station Bust UpEveryone, This is crazy really. The whole point to setting internal Base station interface agreements is to open up the component market and hence let everyone benefit from a true mass market cost structure. If we now have two rival fora (and why not a third one?) we will all loose out on this. Likewise, if we have a "Nokia's friends" camps and a "Ericsson's friends" camp then the rest of us carn't play these two off against eachother.
So why don't we push for a new TSG inside 3GPP (joint with 3GPP2?).
re: Vendors in Base Station Bust UpSeveral people I've spoken to agree with you. It would be better to have one set of internal interfaces. Even Nokia's making nice noises: http://www.unstrung.com/docume...
But behind the scenes the battle between Ericsson and Nokia to use their buying power to control, as much as they can, what happens further down the food chain is getting very strategic.
I doubt either party would want to take this into the official standards organizations because this would open up the low cost structure to everyone.
Among the founders of CPRI perhaps only Nortel can be the one ditching it, not Mobisphere (Siemens/NEC)