Clark, this isn't the answer you are wanting in short. It's my last on the whole issue raised by a single post about Sprint that even though it was about wireless, it had nothing to do with Sprint PCS but Sprint ION. As events are unfolding and will unfold, those that have marbles for brains instead of cubes, will be able to see the strategies that unfold. We aren't talking about years here but months.
First, you have to accept a few axioms:
1. Data and voice are converging. The days of switched voice are over. VoIP is the new darling in this convergence's. When you look at the state of the telecommunications industry not as a microcosms of mobility, but in totality; then you see that it's becoming a wholly data netowrk. The traditional telco equipment suppliers are acquiring data equipment manufacturers and Cisco is acquiring companies that are specializing in the telco equipment data arena.
2. Bandwidth, as measured in MHz, is finite. No air interface presently used takes a fixed bandwidth and makes it carry more and more bits. There are multi-coded techniques or some of the newer air interfaces such as OFDM or BLAST that allow you to get more bits per hertz, but CDMA, TDMA or GSM by itself will not do that. This limitation can be overcome by sectorizing or cellularizing, which allows you to get better frequency reuse over a wider area, thus help maximize your resources to a certain degree, but it doesn't add more bits per Hertz.
3. Wireless and wired are converging. It's not like this is a real big mystery plus it is fairly self evident.
So now we have the desire of everyone being unplugged and being able to do Internet anywhere and anytime. The A and B license for the cellular industry is 25 MHz bandwidth each. PCS A, B and C licenses are 30 MHz each and the D, E and F licenses are 10 MHz each with an additional 20 MHz of bandwidth being held by the FCC in the PCS spectrum. This present 2G system is primarily voice and low speed data. The cellular operators have an additional burden of satisfying legacy analog customers.
Now from the news article posted about the FCC:
BellSouth Corp. , one of the carriers asking the FCC to eliminate the cap altogether, is working to squeeze greater amounts of data into its existing spectrum, but still sees a need for more airwaves.
``It's not a matter of if, but when it takes off,' said Keith Radousky, director of engineering for the company's wireless unit. ``The demand for wireless data will outpace technological improvements in efficiency.'
At Bell Atlantic Corp.'s mobile unit, new spectrum is needed just to satisfy the growth in existing services over the next 4 or 5 years.
``The spectrum cap would prevent us from growing our existing services,' said Bill Stone, executive director of network planning. ``Throw 3G and high-speed data in there and we blow right through the cap.'
The above are two cellular operators bigwigs on the technical side speaking, not I, albeit they are saying the same thing I'm saying. One is CDMA and one is TDMA. Both are validating some of the things that I have opined the past few weeks, which is the US carriers do not have the bandwidth in frequency to satisfy the requirements that 3G will place on it and satisfy the consumer. In Europe they are issuing additional B/W to the existing operators. There is a huge difference in a country like Finland with a population of 5 million or so and NYC on a 27 sq mi plot and 8-10 million living there. God knows how many work, live and are tourist on any given day. These are not qdoggies whims of fancy, they are facts being spoken by the US operators themselves.
The question is where will the FCC get additional B/W to allocate to 8 different license holders? First off, this rubbish myopic view that the FCC is talking about taking the bankrupt C band PCS license it just that, a rubbish view. It has nothing to do with that situation. When the FCC grants a license, you have an appropriate amount of time to do something with it. The C band folks over bid for the license and were under financed to build. Too bad, but they shot their wad and they want the rules modified to protect them. What is that a request to change the rules???
Well, below the PCS band is hamsters (Amateur Radio). They can trade other frequency bands to them for that spectrum, the same as they did the original private microwave services that compose the present PCS band. See, rules change, otherwise PCS would have never happen. Plus the microwave was big dishes that had to be expertly pointed. Yet, they turn it into a mobile communications system.
However, this will not be enough. If you ascribe to Moore's Law and apply it to the demands for higher download/upload speeds in the data network, then in a short period of time the 3G standard, which calls for 144 KBPS in mobile, 384 KBPS in pedestrian and 2.048 MBPS in fixed, will be incapable of satisfying the consumers insatiable demand for greater speed. Look at LAN technology especially Ethernet, it went from 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps and the nextgen is 1000 Mbps, just in the past 6 years. Nothing is static when it comes to the computing world biz model of instant obsolescents.
Remember 3G is an international attempt to come up with a standard that they are targeting deployment by 2002. They haven't yet decided on that standard and pigs may fly before you see it deployed by 2002 (Pink Floyd concerts don't count). Some are suggesting that the various factions are probably going to go with their respective idea?s, in other words, Europe will go with its standard, CDMA One its, etc. ITU has some strict criteria that they use and I?m not going to offer any opinion about it as it will surely cause a real uproar of the PermaBulls.
Now let's go back to the 1st axiom, voice and data are converging. Why have a switched voice system in the mobile environment? Why not have data networks designed around Ethernet standards or even better, a wireless ATM network? Microelectronics is such that I can put a system on a chip or two. My voice handset is nothing more than a port device and air interface to that data network, while allowing VoIP without outboard hardware. Don't look behind you, but they are already postulating the 4G system.
Now as to the question about the various bands above 2GHz (I'm broadening this to include all my opining and not just the unlicensed 2.4 spectrum), the FCC website has the rules and regs section for all to read. Mainly, Code of Federal Regulations, Title 47; carries the various services. In particular, there are two services called GWRS and WRS, in the 4 and 2.3 GHz spectrum which the rules state that they can be a mobile system. The unlicensed band in the 2.4 range is actually fairly universal or global. Its wild west time with this puppy. The new generation of cordless phones operates here as do other devices. Modern day high frequency CB good buddy, if you will. Its a spread spectrum frequency band. There is nothing precluding a company to set up wireless networks in hotels, airports, downtown business districts or anywhere that there is a concentration of users. If there is growing concern about people driving and operating a voice cellphone in a safe manner, what is going to be the reaction when they are surfing the Web? So the idea of a company in the 2.4 GHz setting up 11 Mbps wireless Ethernets isn't as farfetched as you think. As we discuss this, there are some companies proposing just that at $30/month flat rate. Gee, it ain't mobile in the way you think, but it is very transportable and earmarks the places most mobile warriors have the time and need for it. The prevailing factor is cost, which is wireless and unlicensed. $200/month to use a Palm VII is a recent article from 3COM, isn't that over cellular/PCS?
Now on to the MMDS hubris which seems to have caused a bunch of nattering nabobs to go stupid. If I can create a mobile system at 2.3, 2.4 and 4 GHz, then certainly I can do the same in the MMDS spectrum, on a technical basis. Presently, it falls under a different part of Rule 47. That is a regulatory hurdle, which I have said before. If you can show good cause, the rules can and will be changed. Now I wonder why Bell South and Metricom have bid on license in the WRS spectrum? Could it be Satan or a data network? Why has Sprint, AT&T and MCIWorldcom been buying up MMDS license? To do TV?? Like AT&T needs another system to do TV. Which leads us to another fact, those three are formidable lobbyist before the FCC and Congress. Don't tell me that rules can?t be changed. Diffidently don't tell me that technically I can't take a frequency spectrum and turn it into a mobile communications system. MMDS will not be used for TV, not with two more DBS licenses available. If data networks are forcing fiber systems to expand and upgrading from OC-3 and OC-12 to OC-48 and OC192, plus bury even more fiber; then a puny 30, 25 and 10 MHz wireless system will not be sufficient B/W in just a few short years irregardless of air interfaces used, rah rah rah.
Now how does this affect QCOM? What are they doing to expand their CDMA franchise? Seems I recall they have been granted some MC-CDMA patents, but not sure. What others areas of wireless are they researching? How have they position themselves to aggressively attack the rapidly changing face of communications and are they nimble enough to move on it? Those are questions for you to answer and research. They sold their infrastucture biz, so that precludes them from doing WLL, which is what MMDS is fixing to be short and near term. Surely you don't think that Samsung is setting up a test bed in Kansas City just for Sprint PCS eyes only? Also, hasn't Samsung also done it's own research into B-CDMA? That doesn't mean it can?t be semi mobile. Sprint has a bunch of BTA's that are in the D & E license spectrum. Gee, I wonder if there is a correalation between these BTA's and their acquisition of MMDS license?
IPRs run out someday and systems rapidly become archaic. CDMA, GSM and TDMA are all well and fine for limited data and voice, but the introduction of high speed data changes the whole equation along with the demand for it. Enterprising companies are going to build other wireless mobile data systems and I care not what some folks in this modicum thread think about it. I do my cheerleading on Saturday afternoons in the fall or on the golf course, not in the stock market. With that Clark, the thread can go back to doing the wave with each 10 Greenspan dollar move up.
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