Ching is incredible. He is , indeed, accurately describing the predicament of the non-CDMA 2000 wireless world.But we now appear to be entering a new phase of the great denial. From (i)CDMA violates the laws of physics, to (ii)OK, so it works, but its inferior to GSM to (iii)OK so it works as well as GSM, but its hardly worth disrupting the worldwide installed base for GSM, and GSM has a superior migration path to 3g through EDGE in any event to (iv)OK, maybe CDMA has some merit, but we have invented a "GSM-based" version of CDMA which is vastly superior to QCOM's antiquated version. Since we're in the era of broadband mania, we'll call it Wideband CDMA, which is certainly to be preferred to "narrowband" CDMA, because the average Joe won't know that wireless isn't a "Broadband" technology since unlike fiber optics, bandwidth is scarce in the electromagnetic spectrum, and thus a premium is placed on bandwith conservation and band width efficiency, and incidentally, since we invented it with no assistance from QCOM, QCOM isn't entitled to royalties on WCDMA, which by the way, is all the rage and the whole world is turning to WCDMA because you sure won't be able to roam anywhere beyond your backyard with that CDMA-whatever thing that QCOM is promoting but nobody is buying.
All of which brings us to the present, where every non-CDMA 2000 carrier faces the imminent prospect of withering competition they can't hope to match, and to this week's variation of GSM-world denial, as expressed through GSM mouthpiece Ching, which is (v) whenever we describe the harrowing problems faced by the non-CDMA 2000 world in getting 3g off the ground, we will describe those problems as if they universally affect the wireless industry, and we will studiously ignore the fact that there is one 3g technology that is racing to market and that suffers none of the afflictions of the others. We will simply pronounce that 3g is UMTS, and only UMTS, and we will simply pretend we are in a parallel universe in which QCOM, and CDMA 2000, and reality, simply does not exist.
Pretend all you want.
The bullsh*t hits a brick wall when the CDMA 2000 networks light up, and AWE and Cingular and DoCoMo are left to explain to analysts and their shareholders the dramatic and sudden loss in market share.
It really is on the verge of being over, after all these years.
I apologizing for trotting out ancient history, but alittle historical perspective is helpful from time to time. |
