From Bret Swanson over at Gilder
On Tuesday, Soma Networks will announce a major deal with Japan NTT to deploy broadband wireless voice and data systems based on the Qualcomm CDMA standard. An initial roll-out in one metro area will take place in the next two months, and a nation-wide deployment is expected to follow. Over the past few months, NTT as well as two U.S. PCS spectrum holders successfully field-tested the Soma system, which delivers IP voice and broadband data to portable -- and soon-to-be mobile -- antennas, connected not in a circuit-switched telco environment but in a "soft" network based on distributed computing. CEO Yatish Pathak believes the system -- consisting of base-stations built by Selectron and customer units made by Sharp -- can be deployed profitably at $25 per subscriber per month.
Soma was a small company with big ideas when we found it over a year ago, but it has delivered on the technology front, negotiated the bureaucratic mazes of some of the world's largest telcos, and is now booking revenue. Good news for CDMA, good news for Qualcomm, and great news for the last mile and Phase II of the Telecosm. Look for more on Soma's U.S. possibilities in the near future.
-BTS
Now, will someone explain to me why this isn't the most significant positive we have seen for QCOM in a long, long time. Since we are not talking just about cellphone subsriber numbers, but also the number of individual residences WORLDWIDE desiring a cheap and efficient broadband connection? Since we are talking about redefining the market for CDMA from wireless only to include vast domains previously assumed to be the unassailable province of some form of wired telephony? Since we are talking about a solution to the last weak link in the realization of a truly broadband communications system?
Would someone please deliver me from this insane interpretation of these events, back into the depressing reality that we are really worth only $15/share? |
