Hong Kong has a wonderful public transportation system: trolleys, subway trains, buses and mini-buses.These mini-buses fill the role of linking the neighborhoods with the subway-train stations or connecting remote neighborhoods with shopping centers. They're great.
The mini-buses are 16-seaters with no standing allowed. Now, for the people waiting at a bus stop, this can generate more than a little tension. For example, you are running a little late for a dinner date, and you are waiting at a bus stop with five people in front of you.And you know"”just know"”that the bus you are waiting for is probably going to have at least nine people on it and possibly up 13.
Then, you see it coming down the street and you start counting heads.The bus stops.The driver opens the door.The five in front of you start to get on.Everyone at this point"”including the driver"”is counting and looking for empty seats.Then it happens.The driver puts up his hand to the person in front of you; no more empty seats. There's no pushing and shoving to get one or two more on board.You have to wait for the next bus.
Frustrated and angry, you start wishing that there were more buses on the route, and hoping when that next one does show up, it will go twice as fast to make up for lost time.
Many cdma2000 handset and device manufacturers have felt the same frustration:not enough test labs authorized to certify new products for commercial availability, and once a product is accepted for testing, it's taking too long to get it certified.
The CDMA Development Group (CDG) also recognized that there was a problem, and last year announced the first CDMA Certification Forum (CCF) test facility that was authorized to certify cdma2000 devices for commercial availability.The facility, NEWS IQ Labs, is headquartered in San Diego.
When announced, Perry LaForge, the executive director of the CDG said, 'The CCF test process is an evolutionary step forward from the existing CDG test process and with the availability of authorized test labs worldwide it will continue moving our industry in the right direction'.
Thomas Erickson, president and CEO of the CCF, chimed in, 'We are working hard to authorize several other test labs around the world to increase the availability of the CCF certification process and reduce the queue for testing the commercial readiness of CDMA devices.