Mr Fun, why wireline rates and cross-system compatibility are not the primary reasons why the USA cellular penetration has lagged Europe. From a few posts ago:
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<None of my business cards from U.S. executives have a mobile phone number listed. All of my European, Asian, Australian and other non-American business colleagues do.
This reflects a sea of difference between mobile cultures in the U.S. and the rest of the world.>
Okay then, I'll pick out that quote! That is explained by something which has been recognized in the USA but gets little airtime. Calling party pays. The USA for some weird reason charges the person being called rather than the person placing the call to a cellphone. This is nuts! No wonder they don't put their cellphone number on their business cards.
The rest of the world [Finland and New Zealand] bill, or debit, the person calling. If somebody wants to pay the charges, they can get a special number which looks like a normal phone number, but switches to the cellphone, billing the cellphone user.
The USA is now struggling [for a year or more so far] with this concept. The service providers would make a LOT more money if they did it right. People would know other people's numbers. Cellphone owners would leave their phones switched on. The cellphone traffic would climb fast. Everyone would be a lot happier [other than the wireline operators].
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I think that explains it reasonably.
On the IPR and what's knowable. Okay, I agree with you when you put it the way you did. While there is a prospect of a court case, we can always get an OJ decision. Courts is a ass. [Probably misquoted]. They don't have to make photons land in the right place at the right time. They are an art form. Which means formless and detached from reality other than their own perception. No objective standard need be met. That criticism aside they do tend to cluster around a core of reason and sense.
There seems to me to be a very strong agreement in courts, competing business interests and investor minds that various essential patents are Qualcomm's. I'm happy to go along with that huge mass of judgement. Yes, a judge might upset the apple cart. I doubt it. Yes, maybe "Paradigm Shift Happens" and Nokia or another will bypass Q! patents in a brilliant array of novel engineering. We'll just have to worry about that if they achieve it.
Meanwhile, all are following the Q! and paying the Pied Piper. Yes, the Piper's tune did change, to get Ericy to follow and now the W-CDMA clone melody is harmonizing with cdma2000, with some warble, but much payment.
We had patent lawyer dave5 in the threads for a while, bleating that it was all unknowable. Yes. So is everything until we peer inside the box to see if poor Shrodinger's cat is alive. But that doesn't mean we stand still. We place our bets and takes our chances.
The Teroist argument for a long time was that GSM handsets were so spectacularly better than cdmaOne handsets that it was game over for CDMA. Yes, handset features are very important to consumers. So is the minute price and call quality. CDMA has succeeded in closing the handset gap so that the difference to consumers is becoming trivial and already, the ThinPhone has zoomed the options ahead of GSM. For example, CDMA battery life used to be a problem. Not now.
With HDR, MSM ASIC developments and coverage improvements, GSM is not any longer able to even hold the fort where the two compete head to head.
GSM is toast.
I have been surprised how long it took for CDMA to supplant GSM. The job is done in the USA. Japan too [against PHS which is to be deep-sixed in favour of 3G just as soon as NTT can possibly do it]. Australian GSM/CDMA wars have begun. South American TDMA/CDMA battles running hot.
Nokia will have to get their CDMA act really humming. Yes, there will be another 3 years of huge GSM sales. That's big money and of course Ericy and Nokia will stretch that as long as they can.
Europe has already decided to have Q! liberate them from GSM by way of the 3G cdma2000 clone. Albeit in new spectrum for the most part. Don't be sceptical about that. It'll happen. There might be some messing around with the GPRS and maybe even the EDGE stuff whatever that is. But the WWeb will demand better performance and lower cost only available via Mighty Q! and HDR, cdma2000, or clone, manufactured by Ericy, Nokia et al.
Actually, it isn't really religious nor too emotional between the happy denizens of SI. Tero invariably retains good humour. Some of the Q! foot soldiers get a bit wound up because he ignores questions, lines of argument and so on. They find that frustrating. Top points to Tero for remaining in good humour. Wearing a reindeer antler hat all day, you'd have to be good natured. Living in -30deg with a pineal gland shut down for 6 months would also mean the need for good humour [if black]. Having a roaring home grown Nokian world champion must be happy-making too.
Convinced?
Maurice
PS: Pineal gland. In dark conditions, our pineal gland output is affected. BUT! There's more to it than meets the eye! I did a web search and came up with this: alphaomega.se
which says that our mental states and objective reality part company in part because of this. I think that's what it says. But I wouldn't trust a Glastonbury Guru. Isn't that near Stonehenge?
And more. geocities.com
This pineal gland is a pain. Should replace it with a CDMA nerve centre. |
