Jeff,
I think three competitors all vying for market share is better for total CDMA sells than one big concern who has to spread the available money and time over the entire US. Sure VODABAM will put out some big contracts, but the dollar value will be less than GTE,VODA, BAM and Prime Co. would have done on their own.
you missed a few points here. First, airtouch and BAM had different footprints so they were not direct competitors in many markets.
Second, the ones who are shaking now should be T and Nextel, bearing in mind that CDMA is still not the majority in the US market.
I remember reading an article about MOT's fiasco. It mentioned their decision to concentrate on StarTac (analog only at the time), the phone, and not the technology behind it. So they wasted valuable time and resources backing a soon to be obsolete analog phone.
Digital phones are at the turning point again. I opine that there would be no over night switch to any type of 3G but rather a multi tiered migration. As more and more data technology is deployed, the advantages and disadvantages of TDMA, CDMA, iDEN, GSM would become more apparent. However, a nationwide footprint is almost a minimum requirement, if not a global, for any company to be competitive. So this VOD/BAM alliance is not only good for CDMA but a necessity.
By the way, can some engineer type explained the spectrum that Nextel has? I thought they were originally what MOT had for their paging system. Are there technological limitations for them to migrate to data?
Ramsey |
