Ooops, I usually read a bit more carefully before posting and now I see that you were explaining the connection to the GSM networks. Sorry.
That Group Speciale Mobile stuff is all over the place like a rash! How did Q! do the GSM overlay for Vodafone in Newbury? Must have been reasonably okay?
QUALCOMM has perhaps been working on GSM connection for 4 years since it was half a decade ago that it was obvious that GSM was going to be big in a lot of countries and overlays would be essential. Even in new spectrum, connection to the GSM gizzards might be the cheapest way of doing it. So they might not be too far behind.
Phones are reasonably cheap to make and I agree that the multiple mode Globalstar phone isn't my favourite. Kyocera with the Iridium phone had a little standard-sized Japanese cellphone which users could unclip to carry around town, then clip back in for Iridium usage.
Lugging a Globalstar phone around town won't work [not with the size they are at present] though it would be okay in an SUV or car.
In NZ, we have swarms of cheap Alcatel GSM pre-pay phones, costing US$70 to buy with US$50 of free minutes, minimum spend per month of $5. No contract period. Chuck the phone in the rubbish any time you like. Peak minutes US60c and off-peak US20c with international calls off-peak to USA and some other places being US20c per minute. [Taxes included].
So we can own phones which we use very little for not much cost. Multi-band upmarket phones cost hundreds of dollars. I'd rather just show up in Los Angeles, swing by a WalMart and pick up a prepay for the area I'll be in. Tell my home phone number my new number and get it to forward calls.
When leaving, just give it away after canceling call forwarding.
With spotty WWeb service, people would have a WWeb gadget and a GSM prepay for out-of-area use. As you can see, in New Zealand, that wouldn't cost me much at all.
When I bought my IS-95 QCP820 in San Diego area in Feb 1997, it cost about US$500. Ouch! It was dual-mode analogue/CDMA 800MHz. At that time, it would cost an arm and a leg to buy an analogue phone and a CDMA phone and pay monthly bills for each, so dual-mode made more sense than it does now.
Rollout of WWeb won't take too many years and GSM will have a short half-life after 2004.
Mqurice |
