Gary,
<< Hooboy! A must read for every QCOM investor. >>
Yes. A good read for anyone in wireless.
<< Zingers everywhere which is unusual for a consulting firm. >>
Not at all unusual for the consulting firm of Herschel & Jane, and Hersch right famous for zingers. Herschel has always travelled to the beat of a different drum.
Herschel never ranked amongst my particular favorites, and I haven't subscribed his rag for about 5 years, and kind of lost track of his bias of the day. I was reminded of why in February of this year, when he reported some numbers for market share by handset vendors that varied significantly from anything else published on the planet, so he has not changed in that regard.
<< The claimed neutrality clearly favors CDMA 2000 >>
The "claimed" neutrality should favor CDMA 2000, otherwise CDG wasted their money.
The "claimed" neutrality is, however, a very effective touch.
I confess to having done only a fast once through on the paper, and it will be awhile before I have the chance to read it carefully in its entirety.
My initial reaction was that it is a pretty effective piece. It is certainly a better piece than Nokia's puff piece. It is also better than anything I've seen out of Qualcomm.
The hyperbole, the FUD, and the "stretching" of fact are very subtle, and that is exactly what they should be. In general it looks like a nice job by H&J.
All in all, I think that CDG spent their money wisely, and the end result is very good. They could have, I suppose, chosen Andrew Seybold or Ira Brodsky (two individuals that I personally hold in high regard) to author the piece, but both of these individuals, despite their general credibility, are generally acknowledged to be cdmaOne/cdma2000 permabulls while Herschel is - uniquely Herschel - and so may have been a better choice for authoring the paper. Andy and Ira will be weaving their magic in the background anyway, so payrolling Herschel was pretty sage, IMO.
I have always thought that whitepapers of this type are much more intended for investors than carriers. Although they rough out the framework for the technology case, the drill down material that backs it up is much more important, and in the case of TDMA operators considering a technology switch, what may well decide the battle could be vendor financing - if any vendors have any money left.
There are really only 3 major targets in this battle, SBC, BellSouth International, and the Cingular JV of BS and SBC, and a whitepaper will sway none of them, IMO.
I am guessing that the smaller targets in LA will split roughly 50/50 GSM and CDMA, and the smaller targets in NA will opt for CDMA.
Complicating all this is BellSouth's interest in Sprint.
Cingular still appears to be still intent on TDMA-EDGE as the migration path for 11 of their 13 properties. This is probably the least expensive of their migration choices, but also the least effective. I personally feel that cdma2000 should be their choice, but odds are long. It would be a most significant catch for CDG & Qualcomm.
Qualcomm really needs some very active support from their value chain. I suspect they are getting it from Lucent and Nortel, but am not really sure about Motorola and Ericsson.
<< Sparks should soon fly! >>
AWS has certainly left their fellow IS-136 TDMA carriers in a real pickle and it sets up one of those real juicy technology battles, the outcome of which is extremely important to Qualcomm, and will keep us debating here on the boards for some time to come.
In the interim there was a major announcement out of Brazil occurred today:
"Nokia To Deliver Brazil's First GSM And GPRS Network To Leading Operator Telemar In A Deal Worth USD 680 Million"
press.nokia.com
Once AMPS, TDMA, and CDMA only, now Brazil has both Telemar and TIM building out GSM/GPRS.
I have commented here before that last years ANATEL decision had far reaching effects, and was a major blow for CDG & Qualcomm..
With only a handful of GSM carriers last year in Latin America 18 months ago, there are now (I believe) 20.
Next year we could start to witness a remarkable growth rate for GSM in LA, given the fact that there are only 2 million GSM subs there today.
A paradigm shift is occurring in the Americas. In the course of the last 18 months GSM has made significant progress.
FWIW: In Acknowledgements to the whitepaper, Hersch & Jane credit their UK colleague, Geoff Varrall of RTT Programmes Limited (UK) for "his perspectives on the challenges of technology transitions and the pervasiveness of the "reality gap." (I assume this relates to 4.3.1 The "Reality Gap" in Handset Delivery).
Geoff wrote "Mobile Radio Servicing Handbook" and "Data Over Radio" and he writes some interesting stuff on 3G & 2.5G:
imtdesign.com
His January "Hot Topic" made (and explored) the interesting statement "packet switching is no more efficient than cell or circuit switching. This is particularly true when applied to wireless networks".
- Eric - |
