Knickers are a-twist in the wireless industry in reaction to claims made in a May 1 Wall Street Journal opinion piece that cut down TDMA technology and one of its high-profile adopters,AT&T Wireless Services. SBC Communications and BellSouth also operate TDMA wireless networks.

The authors, respected visionaries George Gilder and Richard Vigilante, wrote that “Inferior as TDMA is for voice, it is essentially worthless for dataTDMA is incapable of carrying data atany reasonable speed.” The technology wastes power, they wrote. Pointing their fingers squarely at AT&T, which now has more than 12 million wirelesssubscribers, they continued, “Unless the company changes radically (to a CDMA-based network) now, AT&T Wireless will become a low-tech wasteland.”

The inflammatory editorial spurred water cooler debates and reactions from industry groups and wireless companies. At a time when wireless Internet is poised for exponential growth and discussionof how to implement IP-based third-generation wireless networks are taking place at the World Radio Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, the buzz has taken on a life of its own.

The Universal Wireless Communications Consortium reacted swiftly to the attack on TDMA, producing a news release as well as a response from president SheilaMickool.

UWCC supports TDMA and its 3G counterpart Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (EDGE). She refuted the power claims and added that the Gilder article “in its flamboyant pronouncementsregarding the future of the industry, demonstrated a serious lack of vision,” that could eventually “undermine investors’ confidence” in wireless stocks, regardless of thetechnology a company uses. AT&T Wireless Services completed its nearly $11 billion IPO this month.

Analysts Herschel Shosteck of Herschel Shosteck and Associates points out that the real issue isn’t whether CDMA or TDMA is better for data, but howcompanies will migrate to 3G at all.

“One technology isn’t inherently better than the other,” says Shosteck. “Everyone will have enormous problems in introduction. It’s going to be an unmitigateddisaster, regardless of the network.

Shosteck adds that the religious (technology) wars of the mid-1990s “have started again. But the issue is how you choose to reach the almighty, not the path you take to get there.”

AT&T Wireless Services spokesman Ken Woo added to the buzz, claiming that the article was a product of the “Qualcomm PR machine.” Qualcommowns patents on TDMA’s rival CDMA technology and Gilder is an avid CDMA proponent.

“I thought everyone had agreed to work toward one common denominator (with the move to 3G),” Woo says. “I think this talk that’s being generated is disruptive and divisive.If you strip away the politics, customers don’t care about the technology. They just want it to work.”