The main reason Nok is buying WCDMA contracts is they are afraid. Now all you guys know that I am a qcom groupie, but you should consider this.
I am fairly sure we all agree that cdma2000 out performs WCDMA as the article below states. Nokia knows it and so do the carriers. Nok and other with a vested interest in WCDMA through either IPR or infra and handset sales are SCARED TO DEATH of cdma2000. If it catches on, it is very bad news for future growth for them.
So what do they do? They put on a full court press to convince carriers to go with an inferior technology through financing and bribes (buying stakes in current cdma operators). As far as there buying off cdma carriers, you and I know that those carriers don't have to do anything for quite some time because of cdma's overwhelming advantages. They also know that the longer they wait, the clearer the market will be. Will WCDMA really ever get launched in a big way? If not they just continue on their path of cheaper, faster, and more efficient use using cdma2000. If WCDMA does look big, then they still have choices, they can move to WCDMA or they can rely on multi mode chips that will allow roaming.
Unless high speed data is wildly popular, which I doubt (at least for 3-4 years), the carrier money is made by capacity and flexibility for providing data which is the primary attribute of 1Xev. Turn on high speed data as its needed to maximize capacity. That is why I own qcom. The WCDMA crowd thinks that WCDMA will be good enough for the carriers to make money, I seriously doubt it.
Now the question is what will actually happen. You guys bet that NOK and NTT can buy the adoption of WCDMA. The Q folks bet that the better technology wins.
We shall see the answer beginning to unfold two years from now.
Caxton
A. Seybold - Wireless Conflict of Interest
Telecom Companies Sometimes Sit on Important Consumer Data
By Andrew Seybold
Special to ABCNEWS.com
abcnews.go.com
April 12 — This week I would like to propose to you that there is presently a
conflict of interest within the financial analyst community when it comes to
wireless service operators.
The result of this conflict is that instead of providing their readers with their true
findings and beliefs they have decided to remain quiet for the next few months.
What am I talking about? Today there are three digital wireless technologies in
use in the United States and there is a fourth on the horizon for third-generation
networks.
There are differences in these technologies. Differences that can be
measured.
Quantifiable Differences
These have to do with the number of voice and data calls that can be handled per cell site, the
quality of the voice service, the amount of territory that can be covered by a single cell site, and
a number of other variables.
These calculations can and have been made by all of the financial analysts who cover the
wireless space. They all know that one of the technologies provides better numbers in these
calculations than the others.
They also know that this technology has a clearer path to third-generation services than the
other two. Yet these analysts, with a few exceptions, are remaining quiet when it comes to
which network is deploying which technology and the implications of these deployments.
Why are they remaining quiet when they have research they should be sharing with us?
The answer is where we get into the conflict of interest issues.
Where are the Details?
Sometime during this year three of the top five wireless operators are going to be filing for an
IPO. Since these three IPOs will be three of the biggest ever offered, and since so many
different companies are underwriting them, the analysts at these companies are keeping quiet
until the IPOs have been issued.
Even then they may not provide us with the information they have because of the volatility of the
market.
It's hard enough for us to figure out which way the markets are heading and many of us rely on
the financial community analysts to help us sort out who is going to win and who is not.
I know that analysts are not always right, and as editor-in-chief for Forbes: Andrew Seybold's
Wireless Outlook, I don't always get it right, but still we rely on these folks to help us sort things
like this out.
You can bet that if only one of these companies were filing for an IPO you would hear a lot of
noise from the financial analysts but since there are three: Verizon, AT&T Wireless and Cingular
Wireless, there is apparently too much at stake for them to do their usual analysis.
Verizon's chosen technology path is CDMA, AT&T has chosen to be all things to all people
supporting TDMA, GSM/GPRS, EDGE and UMTS2000 or WCDMA and Cingular Wireless is, today,
sticking with TDMA although I suspect that will be changing shortly.
When you crunch the numbers and do the math it turns out there are many advantages to
CDMA2000 when deploying a wireless network and the financial analysts all know this by now.
But there is too much at stake for their companies for them to come out and say that. Instead
they will stay mum on the subject. However, keeping silent when you know something is, to me,
the worse form of conflict of interest.
If they could claim that they do not understand the differences that is one thing, but to
understand them and keep quiet because of the amount of money involved in the IPOs is another. |
