"..And why the hell would it not be in QCOM's absolute best interest to encourage the vendors and carriers supplying those hundreds of millions of GSM subscribers to adopt some form of CDMA sooner rather than later?.."
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Respectfully, you don't grasp the situation.
3GSM is a process - an evolution.
With a timetable.
Perfect, functioning UMTS technology today would not alter this timetable - it would only assure 3GSM carriers of the viability of 3GSM evolution.
First there is GPRS, EDGE...... and now EGPRS <g>.
For a protracted period - until at least mid-decade - UMTS network development will be, at best, incidental to 3GSM. And even then it will be selectively built and offered to specific target populations and geographic areas. In the nearer term, networks will be primarily for PR and bragging rights - as well as addressing voluminous, overwhelming bugs, including the biggest roach of all - asynchronous handover.
Q has estimated approximately 10M wCDMA/UMTS users by, I believe, 2005.... and the majority of these will no doubt be found in Asia.... Q understands the process of 3GSM evolution in making this projection.
If you wish to see faster cdma2000wCDMAUMTS evolution - you will find it in only one place - GPRS failure.
And you may well be in luck.
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On another, though related topic, read MOT's earnings release..... and try to find "GPRS" mentioned..... anywhere....
And MOT has the only GPRS handset available - think they'd be bragging... <g>
biz.yahoo.com
regards, ben |
