Huawei Technologies

2005.10 8
 How to Operate
The Glorious Development of EV-DO Continues

The Glorious
Development of
EV-DO Continues
By Chen Xiuting

In a global wave of 3G network development, the EV-DO industry

has taken advantage of a great chance for commercial applications
and technical developments to build up a complete industry chain,
leading to great business successes. Now, faced with maturing
technologies and aggressive developments in the UMTS, the EV-DO
industry has begun using full-service DORA to provide real-time
multimedia services to continue its exciting development.

37 JULY 2006 ˙ ISSUE 22

 Huawei Technologies

services from high-end users, the service rate provided

Wide Global Applications of EV-DO by the CDMA2000 1X network was not able to
recent report put out by the CDMA adequately meet service needs.

A Development Group (CDG) states that

by April 14, 2006, 35 EV-DO networks
had been deployed worldwide, and
another 37 networks are expected to be
deployed within the next year. Among the existing EV-DO
networks, 15 of them were constructed by Huawei. In
terms of applications and deployment, EV-DO
networks are not only popular in developed countries,
but also becoming popular in developing areas such
as, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. The EV-DO
terminal market has been maturing, so much so, that
currently it has more than 60 providers supplying 160
models of EV-DO handsets, and over a dozen models
of EV-DO data cards.
At present, there are more than 300 million CDMA
subscribers worldwide, and the number of EV-DO
subscribers is rapidly increasing as well. As shown in
Fig. 1, in a span of three and a half years, since the first
deployment of the EV-DO network by SKT, South
Korea, in June 2002, to the end of 2005, the number
of EV-DO subscribers worldwide has reached 24
million. However, few developments have been
occurring in the EV-DV (Evolution-Data Voice) field,
which is a competitor of EV-DO. So the question is:
Why has EV-DO developed so fast?
Key Factors in the Fast
With the above scenario set as a background, Verizon
decided to launch EV-DO data services under the brand
name of “BroadbandAccess”. Verizon’s network currently
covers the downtown areas of 180 U.S. cities and 72
airports, and offers a downlink data rate of 400-
700Kbps, which is equivalent to ADSL services. For
the purposes of convenient and simple usage,
BroadbandAccess support various functions. For
example, combined VPN meets the high performance
requirements of high-end users. In places not covered
by the BroadbandAccess network, the system can be
automatically linked or switched to the NationalAccess
network, thereby ensuring continuous data services. In
terms of service charges, the monthly rental for
BroadbandAccess services is US$80, which is 34%
higher than the charge for NationalAccess brand services.
In Japan, KDDI has been developing EV-DO
services at a quick pace. At the early stage of commercial
application, KDDI is providing excellent coverage and
winning wide-spread recognition. When Sprint, the
second largest CDMA operator in the United States,
announced its plan to deploy EV-DO networks,
EV-DO technology was widely regarded as the trend
in CDMA developments.
In fact, EV-DO applications are not matters that
Table 1 Main data services based on CDMA2000 1X and EV-DO (SKT)

Development of EV-DO
• Favors from CDMA2000 operators
In South Korea, SKT uses the “NATE” brand for
its CDMA2000 1X data services and the “JUNE” for
EV-DO data services. For SKT, EV-DO services mean
real multimedia services. By March of 2005, SKT had
garnered 18.90 million subscribers, including 6.7
million EV-DO subscribers, which represents 35.4%
of all subscribers. Profits from the “JUNE” brand are
20% higher than profits from other brands, and the
ARPU of “JUNE” is over US$50, among which US$15
is generated from data services. Table 1 lists SKT’s main
data services based on CDMA2000 1X and EV-DO.
In the United States, Verizon, the largest CDMA
operator, began application of its EV-DO network in
October 2003. To date it has opened EV-DO services
in more than 60 cities. Before the EV-DO service was
put into operation, Verizon had deployed a nationwide
CDMA2000 1X network and had launched mobile
data services named “National Access”, which
supported services at the rate of 60-80kbps and met
the requirements of ordinary Internet services.
However, with the rapid development of Internet
technology, especially with the increase of mobile office Fig. 1 Quick increase of global EV-DO subscribers (Data Source: CDG)

JULY 2006 ˙ ISSUE 22 38

 How to Operate
The Glorious Development of EV-DO Continues
concern only larger industry-leading operators.
In many countries in Asia Pacific, Africa,
Middle East, and Europe, lots of operators
have constructed, or are about to construct
EV-DO networks. In Czechoslovakia,
Eurotel has recently put an EV-DO network
into operation. In Portugal, INQUAM has
constructed an EV-DO network for
operation in a very rapid way.
In a word, operators’ support is essential
for the successes of EV-DO developments.
• EV-DO meets terminal users’
specific requirements
In developing countries in the Middle
East, Africa and Asia Pacific, infrastructures
of fixed networks are still quite backward.
In many circumstances, the construction of
fixed networks is considered to be not very
cost-effective. Hence, many operators are
searching for an alternative access technology
to meet the increasing demands for data
services. Despite the variety of broadband
wireless access technologies on the market,
many operators seem to prefer EV-DO
technology. Some of the reasons for this
would include: giant operators’ support for
EV-DO technology, the large numbers of
successful cases, a mature industry chain, and
the advantages in coverage.
• A great opportunity for further
developments
The technical advantages, a mature
industry chain, and giant operators’ support,
are some of the key inner factors that account
for the success of EV-DO. The external factors
are of equal importance, although they are
ignored in most cases. To fully understand
the reasons for EV-DO successes, we must
take a closer look at the developments of
CDMA and even at the 3G industry.
The evolution of CDMA2000 has been
permeated with conflicts between EV-DO
and EV-DV technologies. Before mid-2003,
many operators showed a preference for
CDMA2000 1X EV-DV technology, and
mainstream providers abandoned or were
about to abandon the EV-DO development
plan. However, the reverse link in the
EV-DV Rel.C version adopted the same
technology as CDMA2000 1X, which
displayed poor service bearing ability, due
to the restricted nature of the reverse link.
As a result, many operators and providers
39 JULY 2006 ˙ ISSUE 22
initially planned to adopt the EV-DV
Rel.D version as their commercial version.
Unfortunately, since the EV-DV Rel.D
version involved too many complicated
technologies and equipment venders, many
key technologies had to pass through a series
of complicated procedures, which included:
emulation, authentication and comparison.
So, it was not until April 2004 that the
EV-DV standards were finally launched.
Such a delay offered a great opportunity for
the application of EV-DO technology.
Meanwhile, after several disappointing
developments in 3G networks worldwide,
especially in Europe, around 2002, operators
began to seek the answers to such questions
as: How to develop 3G networks to operate
better? What services should 3G networks
provide? How can these networks earn profits?
All these questions had troubled UMTS
operators for some time. In this period, the
operational pressures from UMTS to the
EV-DO are very small, and this formed a good
environment for EV-DO’s development.
Moreover, during the early stages of EV-DO
development, UMTS standardization
organizations were very idealistic and released
dozens of protocol modifications almost every
quarter, creating many headaches for system
and terminal providers.
As a consequence, most UMTS providers
began to develop their own chips, and thus,
were unable to form a complete industry
chain. In regard to EV-DO developments,
however, most of the technologies were
developed by Qualcomm, which offers
reference designs for base stations and
terminals, thus allowing providers to launch
EV-DO systems and terminals very quickly.
Non-stop to Continue the
Glorious Development
The above analysis shows that the success
of EV-DO can be attributed to both inner
factors and certain events that were taking
place in the external environment. One of
the largest challenges facing the industry was
whether or not EV-DO technology would
be able to develop quickly enough, and on a
continuous basis, what the future would hold
for EV-DO when pitted against such
formidable challengers as broadband wireless
access technology (WiMAX) and UMTS/
HSPA enhanced technology.
At present, existing EV-DO networks
are all based on the Rel.0 version and are
actually bearer networks based on data
services. A couple of the more negative
features of this type network is that it usually
has a low uplink data rate and has poor
QoS performance, and hence, is not able
to bear real-time multimedia services, or
full services. UMTS networks, on the
other hand, are able to support real-time
multimedia services, including video-
phone. They are also able to adopt HSPA
technology, which further improves their
data service transmission ability.
The requirements for diversified and real-
time communications from terminal users
have placed a considerable amount of
pressure on EV-DO networks. As a result,
many EV-DO operators such as, Verizon,
Sprint and KDDI, have began to shift their
attention to EV-DO Rev.A (DORA)
technology. DORA, not only improves the
network’s data service bearing ability, but
also introduces many advanced technologies
to ensure the QoS of real-time services. In
other words, DORA helps to develop from
pure data-packet networks into 3G
networks, which are able to bear real-time
multimedia services. The networks of the
future will be developed into basic telecom
networks able to bear full services. As
matter of fact, DORA, and its successive
technologies (e.g. EV-DO Rev.B), have been
quite similar to UMTS/HSPA technologies,
especially in terms of frequency spectrum
utilization and service ability.
However, the most important element for
continued EV-DO development, is not
the technology itself, but how this technology
will be used. It is well known for the operators
that users’ understanding of wireless networks
depends on the ability to provide services
and the service experiences. This therefore
requires EV-DO operators to deploy wireless
networks, to look at things from a global
perspective and to be able to provide real-time
multimedia services. For these operators,
especially those who have never deployed
EV-DO Rel.0 networks, a major concern is
how to build future-oriented, highly
competitive real-time multimedia bearer
networks. This is a necessary course that
EV-DO must take if it is to keep its market
advantages, or when it is confronted with
challenges from new competitors.
Editor: Li Jian li.jian@huawei.com