re: Questions Unanswered
John,
<< Just Curious. How in brief would you explain the following: >>
Sorry for the delay in responding ...
I'm now 90% caught up but still haven't listened to Qualcomm Q2 CC.
<< 1) The penetration of approx 18% of global subscribers in scarcely 6-7 years time against an entrenched technology that had an inherent cost advantage (large economies of scale) and regulatory protection (EU wide mandatory use of GSM). >>
We have somewhat beaten that to death, and market share, subscriber growth by technology, rate of growth by technology are spread here.
Message 17392258
Candidly, when I ran the numbers (which I'd been meaning to do for some time again) I was expecting that over the last 6 months cdmaOne/cdma2000 would have gained some ground on both IS-136 TDMA and GSM, particularly from the point of view of growth rate, since GSM growth rate has leveled so substantially in Western Europe.
As a Qualcomm shareholder the marginal reduction of cdma market share from 11.9% to 11.7% in the last 18 months balanced by the substantial growth of GSM from 56.6% to 67%, is somewhat alarming, as is cdma's declension from 13.9% of digital subs to 12.2% when balanced against GSM's growth from 66% to 71% market share of digital subs in the same period.
The lesson here is that technology adoption by carriers has heavily favored GSM outside of Western Europe where GSM is mandated (as IS-95 was mandated in Korea), and at least to this point cdma has gained little ground where it competes heads to head with GSM.
In regard to technology adoption it should be noted that:
* 66 New GSM or 3GSM Network Operators joined GSMA in the last 6 months
* The vast majority of 3rd Gen Licensees have chosen the 3GSM path.
* IS-136 TDMA Carriers controlling 65% of the TDMA subs in the world are flipping to GSM, and the migration is just starting.
<< 2) Abysmally slow adoption of GPRS and GPRS services. >>
"GPRS services" do not really yet exist (although they are starting to be introduced). and neither do the enabler's for the features that will make GPRS successful
As a consequence - and most importantly - very few of the 116 carriers that have launched are aggressively marketing GPRS ... YET ... and they won't do so until the "GPRS services" and their enablers are in place.
GSM carriers are bound not to make the same mistakes they made with WAP - which of course is the same mistake cdma carriers (outside of Korea & Japan) made with WAP based data services.
All this of course is exactly the same boat 1xRTT carriers (outside of Korea & Japan) find themselves in.
Now despite all this, two Europeans carriers who have started to actively market GPRS (TIM and Mannesman) in Europe have both reportedly eclipsed the 1 million subscriber number in the March quarter, and it appears that E-plus with GPRS i-mode is doing very well.
In addition to the lack of "GPRS services" and the enablers of same the elimination or paring back of handset subsidies has had a dramatic affect on handset growth and in particular higher end handsets ... and high end handsets are requisite for the delivery of anything more than rudimentary data services.
This situation is not going to last for long, although the transition from a voice centric mobile wireless business model to a voice and data-centric business model will not happen overnight (anymore than it did with SMS).
The GSM carriers (and vendors) are doing what they have done in the past, to insure success of wireless services (SMS being a case in point) - i.e. acting in a spirit of coopetition, and focusing on network to network interoperability and roaming.
Working cooperatively GSMA & its members are fast tracking the solutions that eliminate barriers to wireless data implementation:
Message 17125180
They have prioritized their requirements for GPRS features and services, mapped them against the UMTS Forums similar set of requirements, and created a "Roadmap of Operator Requirements for GPRS Features and Services".
Message 17125194
I would highly recommend reading that roadmap which is downloadable here:
gsmworld.com
If a comparable roadmap exists within the CDG community, I am unaware of it.
If one doesn't exist, it is extremely unfortunate.
As I've commented before, I'm not sure that whether or not mass deployment of GPRS will commence this fall, but if it doesn't I am rather confident that it will begin no later than next spring, based on the rather uniform implementation of services outlined in the roadmap, and commencement of aggressive marketing efforts on the part of the carriers.
<< 3) Your definition of backward compatibility when adoption of WCDMA by definition involves a brand new air interface. or alternatively,- just how much of that legacy GSM system (rf equipment, etc. ) gets junked. >>
Yes, there is an entirely new air interface, and that is a major and very expensive hurdle, particularly in a cash constrained sector ...
... and as a consequence, cash constrained, credit tapped carriers, with no developed business plan for multimedia data, caught in a very tough economy, have decided that less sophisticated high speed circuit-switched and packet-switched data services, are perfectly adequate for the near term future.
As for backward compatibility, 3GSM builds on ALL the rich bearer and data services contained in GSM Phase Two Plus (lacking in great degree in the ANSI-41 based cdma & tdma environments), and all regional variants of same, and GSM/3GSM continues to focus on developing specifications within the overall standard in sufficiently robust and painstaking detail such that any and all vendors that devote sufficient R&D, can supply any portion of the core network or RAN, interoperable with other vendors and backward compatible to GSM phase Two or Two Plus, thus minimizing replacement of existing core infra or even base stations (because of the modular design of same).
Multi-mode (and multi-band) GSM, HSCD, GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, WCDMA with HSDPA, are of course all part of the "GSM" interoperability scheme, because it will take the better part of 10 years to replace the GSM base, just like it took (will take) the ANSI-41 based cdma networks 10 years to wipe out AMPS.
<< or alternatively,- just how much of that legacy GSM system (rf equipment, etc. ) gets junked. >>
Not much gets "junked" (RF wise).
Rearranged yes.
Supplemented yes.
Some legacy gear and core components does get junked as the price of upgradeability to all-IP (core and RAN).
<< 4) Poor showing of FOMA - both in absolute terms and in terms of its "performance/compatibilty " of its predecessor platform. >>
First and foremost, the poor showing of FOMA can be attributed to the same thing as the poor showing of GPRS - a lack of compelling services to differentiate FOMA from the most successful mobile wireless internet service in the world ... 'i-mode' ... and to justify the higher prices of FOMA handsets.
'i-mode' users already enjoy color handsets, color browsers, color content, mobile java content segmented services, messaging, etc., and now 5x data throughput from the original 'i-mode'.
Second, FOMA has been a debugging exercise for a revolutionary as opposed to an evolutionary technology.
Third, FOMA was built to an extremely immature version of the 3GSM 'R99' standard.
Add to this:
- Very limited initial geographic buildout
- Tough geography (concrete + steel canyons)
- No multi-mode PDC/W-CDMA handsets
- Limited handset selection
- Few compelling new features
- No compelling content not available elsewhere
- Passive marketing (intentional)
- Focus (new for DoCoMo 7 'i-mode) on corporate app development
- Abysmal handset battery life due to low level of integration in handsets that are essentially being produced in very limited quantity.
- Other "new technology" issues
- Evolution and debugging of the proprietary FOMA layer
- Early adopter role
Presumably all this is being addressed (and has been addressed in the background), but until it is, FOMA will enjoy limited growth ...
... but don't count them out.
<< 5) why simply there is likely to be "tens of millions" of 1xrtt/CDMA200 users before WCDMA is even out of the gates. thanks in advance. >>
Because there will be "hundreds of millions" of GSM GPRS or EDGE users or potential users by that time.
The success of GPRS or EDGE is absolutely requisite for building necessary confidence to free up the requisite capital to build out the W-CDMA RAN, debug and mature the 'R99' and 'R4' 3GSM standards, and work through interoperability issues which increase exponentially with the complexity of applications, and eventually enhance and expand data services and provide the multimedia services that 3rd Gen was intended to deliver.
Now I have answered your questions to the best of my ability.
Perhaps you could answer one for me.
Why is the introduction of comprehensive 1xRTT data services outside of Korea (and now Japan) so abysmally late?
Best,
- Eric - |
