Standardization in a wireless environment

The mobile communications industry was built upon a fundamental technological stability in the radio transmission link: analog FM. For nearly forty years this stability supported a comfortable environment in which uniform standards were feasible. Single standards supported the manufacturer´s goal of lowering production costs. Consumers benefitted as competition forced these lowered costs to be passed through to the public. This comfortable equilibrium was shattered in the 1980´s with the introduction of digital radio into the commercial marketplace. Digital radio will end, forever, the era of a single standard and a complacent marketplace. This paper presents the authors´ opinion of the role of standardization in a wireless environment