Ramsey, no hostility intended. Just calling them like I see them. FWIW, I have no antipathy towards NXTL naysayers, doubters and critics. Like Ed says, "water off a duck's back."
Anyway, before I get into my take on the MOT-NXTL axis, here're my bona fides (my apologies if this is redundant): I'm a software developer who's been a contractor for MOT for the past 6 years. I've been working in MOT's Cellular Infrastructure Group (CIG) on a portion of the Iridium system for almost 2 years. Before that, I worked in MOT's Land Mobile Product Sector on iDEN related development for 2 years. I know all of the MOT's international iDEN marketing team (sat in the same room w/them for more than a year) and I know many key engineers and engineering managers. On the business side of things, I have a Master of Management (MM) from Kellogg. This is not bragging, it merely gives credence to my claim that I am not a techno-geek tucked into the back room of a disused laboratory. Also, I'm not a MOT employee and like to think that I am quasi-objective in my evaluation of these issues. One final note, I am not an RF engineer.
Anyway, as I've mentioned before, iDEN is handled by LMPS. iDEN is, by far and away, LMPS' cash cow. They have a literal army of engineers and support staff working on it. If anything, this army is growing. While I'm not rubbing elbows in corporate headquarters with Chris Galvin, I'd be utterly shocked if MOT drops or even curtails iDEN R&D in the near future.
WRT, "MOT has a tendency to rely on past technologies a little too long, such as the pagers and powerPC semi products"...This is the quote that really got me going. While paging in developed countries is definitely in decline, is the prudent move to drop the business? This business is huge. MOT will milk this cash cow in developing countries, which I feel is the only rational move. In 3rd world countries, pagers are still big business. What percentage of people can afford a cell phone in China, Kenya, India, etc? Not many. Pagers are very viable in these locales. MOT's PowerPC line is the 2nd (albeit far behind Intel) most popular line of microprocessors. While sales of traditional PowerPC chips are down because Apple is hurting, MOT has a big chunk of the embedded processor market. Being 2nd in a huge and growing market is not necessarily a terrible thing.
"As far as digital cellular is concern, MOT is behind the Europeans when it comes to GSM and behind QCOM in CDMA.
Cite your sources please. I have read some reviews stating that Nokia and Ericsson subscriber units perform better than MOT subscriber units. However, I haven't read anything like that regarding infrastructure. CIG handles digital cellular. They have a big chunk of the GSM market (I'll try to post the numbers later) and have been landing CDMA contracts like mad. Who landed the humongous Japanese national digital cellular contract (which, I believe, is based on CDMA technology)? Hint, it wasn't QCOM.
"They are rushing like mad to catch up and may not be focusing enough on iDEN."
CIG has nothing to do with iDEN. Based on the number and size of the CDMA contracts CIG has won, they must be doing a good job of catching up. At the risk of being redundant, there will be no R&D drain from iDEN as a result of CIG's efforts to *catch up*.
As for technical innovations, sure MOT is NXTL's sole source. But, hey, they seem to be doing a pretty good job so far, no? They have a 2 year lead on dispatch. When's QCOM scheduled to deliver dispatch again? 1999?
In closing, I reiterate what others on this thread have stated. Joe Blow subscriber doesn't give a damn what technology is allowing him to communicate. As long as the service is good, who cares. From the service provider's perspective, as long as the quality and capacity is there and the cost of the technology is in line with the competing technologies, the technology is basically a non-issue.
I'm done, I promise. |
