pany is likely to use and promote the standard. Conversely, if the issues seem trivial or ill-defined or so politicized that a good outcome is unlikely, then fewer expert engineers are sent, and the company's best experts stay at the office designing systems. This sometimes can lead to the un- fortunate result that a company's best engineers are designing systems to standards developed by less talented people. Standards organizations have a number of roles in relation to the development of new technology. A highly successful technology, such as Qualcomm's CDMA, can be de- ployed before it is accepted as an official standard. CDMA was an interim standard for many years even after it was supporting tens of millions of subscribers. In such cases, the market will draw vendors to produce products that meet the standard before-per- haps long before-the standard is final. On the other hand, sometimes the work of standards committees can precede pro- duction and deployment of equipment and systems. This can happen in two ways. one case, international, governmental, or independent industry standards committees, while solving one problem, look ahead to define and solve another problem. This is what happened in the evolution of 3G cellular standards. The ITU itself, having estab- lished 2G standards, saw the need for a single 3G standard for cellular voice and data, created a committee, and called for proposals. We'll have more to say about what hap- pened to the 3G committee later in this chapter. The second way in which committees precede standards is the case where an inter- est group representing a new industry or part of an existing industry is formed. These not-for-profit groups promote the standard, but they are biased toward the standard, and they expend effort marketing the ideas as well as defining them. This can lead difficulties, as we shall see when we discuss the evolution and definition of Personal Communications Services (PCS). 9.1.7 The effects of standards on technology In the case of a highly successful, 