Keith: It was a bit like a hibernation...Bear, sore head and all that..sorry. Now on to business. Yep, i found all the references you were referring to.
A couple of things.
1) BellSouth International have chosen 1x for one of its South American arms. However, apart form Lynnette Luna (not th emost accurate reporter i have ever read), there is no mention of an overlay (we would also have to define overlay). The Motorola announcement concerning the order makes no mention of overlay and treats it as a normal new sale.
2) Of course Nextel are looking at new technologies, everyone does, especially in the States were spectrum is more constrained than in other places in the world. Who remembers that 'laugh' of the cdma overlay trial by Vodafone. For over a couple of years some people kept brining it up and i stated that a spokesperson (director) told one of my friends that there was no commercial reason to do so (one reason was it was too expensive for any gains).
As for WCDMA competing against GPRS and EDGE, I agree to a point. In most European countries the incumbent mobile operators will or already have a UMTS license. This will negate EDGE, however GRPS is now and provides a pretty easy upgrade (it is, never mind the boo boys who say otherwise as they aint telling the truth) that will educate both consumers and operators in the arts of packet billing and services. (I hate putting that many "ands" in one sentence!)
The biggest question is about AT&T, if they move to EDGE...who else in the world will? Now, the FCC has finally woken up to the fact that they should have cornered spectrum for new 3G frequencies...better late than never, but by being late -like 10 years- they are looking at the "wrong" spectrum. However, if they auction new spectrum I am sure AT&T will get a license and then they will probably go the WCDMA route in line with the global community.
Actually, I feel an article coming on, so better dash.....
Cheers,
M |
