Hello Daniel!
QCOM was never a short-term investment. Wait until the
GSM coverage in the US starts getting saturated.
I fear that the GSM/CDMA/TDMA battle will go the way of
HDTV for the same reasons VHS won over Beta. But, not
for the same reasons the GSM alliance wants us to believe.
All three choices were made because the better technology
was ultimately cheaper. But, in the case of VHS/Beta, VHS
won because it was cheaper and could fit an entire movie
onto a single tape. Beta was impressive because of that
mechanical loading ring stunt the VCR's used. Yuck.
The Japanese had big plans for their "Muse" HDTV system
including distributing it by DBS LEO sattelites. They
demonstrated a working Sattlite HDTV distribution system
at NAB (NHK booth) in 1991. Because you had to motorize
the antenna to track the LEO sattelite, it looked exactly
like an Omnitracs antenna. But they had more work to do.
They proposed spending millions modifying the facia of a
skyscraper and a highway overpass to minimize interference
to this DBS signal. You couldn't record it economically.
All because the Muse signal was 2.1 times the bandwidth of
today's NTSC system.
In the US, where licenses were purchased for a staggering amount
and local resident's keep blocking antenna permits for PCS,
capacity and coverage are key. If an investment in CDMA over
GSM gives you capacity for twice as many customers, why buy GSM?
So that we can use a slower modem speed and roam to Europe
(paying $5 a minute in Roam charges?) Coming to think of it,
I don't plan on traveling to Europe at all.
Like the American ATV standard, CDMA wins the economics race.
While the chip design is far from a piece of cake compared
to traditional TDMA or FM modulation, it can ultimately be
cheaper as the infastructure can be spread around more
customers. Once everyone figures out that CDMA is not
impossible, I think the phones will start shipping at prices
people will stand in bigger lines to pay.
I just don't think Ericsson has been trying so hard
to shut down CDMAOne just because they want to save the
consumers some money. Even Vodaphone is willing to risk it's
established GSM customer base to promote "not pure GSM"
to liberate European consumers from inferior voice, data and
call capacity.
But, this is my opinion. |
