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                         *  F  E  A  T  U  R  E  S  *

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                      The Cellular time bomb ticks on...


    The cellular phone business is in  crisis,  a  victim of its  own  success.
So  many  people are now signing  on  to  Cellnet  and  Vodafone  services that
in just four and a half years,  both  have  300,000 subscribers and are gaining
nearly 4000 more each week.
    Congestion,  with  callers unable to  get  through  because  all  available
frequencies are in use, is so bad  that  users  are likely  to  latch on to any
journalists they meet and beg them  to  write  stories  'exposing  the scandal'
of the high prices  charged  for  such erratic services.
    Although  Cellnet  and  Vodafone  can  produce   statistics  which  'prove'
that only a small percentage  of  calls  fail,  any   mention  of this proof is
likely to throw anyone sitting  in  a  traffic   jam   with a blocked line into
paroxysms of rage.
    The  government  has released  extra  frequencies   to   ease  the  problem
and  Cellnet  and Vodafone  continually   play   technical  tricks  with  their
cells  to  allow  more  frequent   re-use  of  available    frequencies.    But
Cellnet    recently      suffered    catastrophic     failures     caused    by
overloading   of   Motorola  'switches' which  control  the allocation of calls
to transmitters.
    Cellphone  users are reaching the end of their  tether,  grass  roots staff
are worried because  they  know  there  is  worse  to  come,   and dealers play
ostrich.
    With impeccable timing, British Telecom  has  chosen to  replace  Cellnet's
battle scarred and respected boss Colin Davis  with  new  man Stafford Taylor -
who has spent his life working for  IBM  and  IBM  dealers, and is acknowledged
by BT to have no experience  of  cellular radio.
    Taylor's  first job will be to  face highly  unpalatable  facts  served  up
on his plate by his own engineers and backed  by  the  experience of Vodafone's
engineers.  In a nutshell, the  national  cellular  services  may  well have to
shut  their  doors  to  new  customers in mid 1991, far earlier than expected.
    The more expensive pan  European  gsm  service  -  previously  seen  as  an
adjunct to the national service for   jetsetting  business  users - will become
the saviour of the national services.
    Britain's  existing national  cellular  services  use   the   total  access
communications system (tacs).   Extra  frequencies   recently  relinquished  by
the military are  known  as  extended   tacs.    Tacs   and  etacs use analogue
speech.
    Gsm carries speech as heavily compressed digital code which is  interleaved
to  allow one channel  to  carry  at   least   twice   the   number of calls on
analogue tacs.
    The  first  gsm  prototypes,  expected  next  summer,  will   use  a  large
number of discrete components  and  be  expensive.   Dedicated  microchips will
not be ready until late 1992.
    European   manufacturers  are  anxious  to   keep  markets   to  themselves
and exclude Japanese competitors.  So  subscribers  will   have to pay European
prices, whatever they  are.   And  cross  border   billing  will  increase call
charges.
    All  this would  not  matter  if  the  national  services   had   room  for
continued expansion alongside gsm.  But they do not.
    Each  country  in Europe was  allocated  a  25MHz band  of  radio  spectrum
for cellular radio, 15MHz for analogue systems  now  and  10MHz for digital gsm
in the future.
    In Britain Cellnet  and  Vodafone  each  have  5MHz  for  gsm  which,  with
digital compression and  interleaving,  will  cope  with  250,000  subscribers.
Once  these channels are congested,  gsm   can   only  expand   if  frequencies
are  transferred  from  existing   tacs  services.
    Until recently, engineers believed  that  there  could  be a slow,  orderly
transfer  of  a  few frequencies at   a  time,  with  all  frequencies  finally
being transferred by 2010 when the  existing  tacs  operators' licences expire.
But research  studies  carried  out by  the  tacs operators and now on Taylor's
desk show that  the  computers  controlling  gsm  will  need to work with large
blocks  of  frequencies transferred from tacs.
    Ted  Beddoes,  Vodafone's  technical  director,  believes  the  company can
sign on up to 1.5 million  subscribers  and  go  on using  tacs  until at least
1992.  Steve Hearndon, his counter   part   at   Cellnet,  prefers to work on a
ceiling of one million subscribers,  likely  to  be  reached June 1991 when gsm
becomes available.
    He warns that taking on more  than a million tacs  subscribers,  especially
if a third are in London, will  mean  too   many  people  fail  to get through.
He describes planning for the future as  a  'mental juggling act'.
    As one jaded cellular engineer put  it:"The  trade looks at  the  next  ten
minutes.  What they worry about is what  discounts  they  can get now, not what
may happen in 1992.  They assume  engineers  will find answers to everything."
    Oftel   recognises  the  problem  but   says  vaguely  it   has  confidence
that new digital personal  communications   technology,   which works at around
2GHz, will save the day.
    Cellnet's Hearndon fears that the trade  is being distracted by  this  kind
of talk.  "These frequencies are twice  those  used  by  cellular  phones,"  he
warns.  "The technology is not  ready  and  there are not enough skilled people
in the industry to solve  the  problems."


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