Gee Elroy, market models versus a centrally planned economy. How can I resist. Especially when the great and glorious people's republic of Bob [Australia is given as the harbinger of cellular heaven] is mentioned. They are trying to introduce a market model on their wharves at the moment, with some resistance from the monopolist union guys.
You might be interested to know that tomorrow, there is a Web auction from 825 MHz to 1850 MHz in Australia.
Check the action at aca.gov.au
Our very own MightyQ is bidding under the pseudonym OzPhone [according to Infotech weekly], along with some local and perhaps other partners.
They have "initial eligibility" to the tune of 2,536,330, which is some indication their intentions as their final bid must relate to this. A deposit of A$5 million has been paid to support this eligibility. Total deposits of A$37 million have been paid by 9 organisations with Telstra the high one at A$8 million.
This is to get some market model into Australia - I doubt with the intention of lifting prices. Analog is being made illegal [crazy but apparently still true] from the end of 1999. That was part of a cozy deal to protect the incumbent providers. No competing networks were allowed.
The USA didn't operate under a market model anyway. There were only two providers allowed in any area [correct me if that is wrong], pricing plans had to be submitted to the commissar, various other restrictions on telephony market wars were in place. Now it is open slather [almost] in the USA and San Diego has about 5 or maybe 6 cellular/pcs networks. Prices are coming down all over the place. Roaming deals are building quickly.
Without the market model, Europe would forever be locked into the obsolete GSM European system. Ericsson and co have had to capitulate as cdmaOne rolls over them and they are now flat out trying to stick a few fig leaves together to cover their network in backward compatible acronymns without using Qualcomm intellectual property - they are struggling desperately to invent something which they will presumably give away with an air of "from those according to their ability and to those according to their need". Hahaahaha! I bet they don't.
Meanwhile, I still have a dead QCP 820 and no Eudora Pro 4.0 for Windows 95 proxy server configuration. Maybe Qualcomm results in a week will cheer me up. As you say Harvey, I'd be thrilled if these are the biggest problems I get this year.
Email me at:
Maurice@cdmaCellular.co.nz
Incidentally, if you want to buy infrastructure, Lucent has the best web site. Motorola respond quickest - with computer generated email acknowledgement [we'll see how fast a people follows up]. Qualcomm is more tricky in that the Web site gives you no clue who to contact. Samsung has a form which doesn't transmit. Northern Telecom has a contact and reasonable web site.
New Zealand's spectrum auction in the PCS bands around 2GHz start in June or thereabouts. 600 MHz being sold. That IS a lot. Talk about market model. We are going to have it in spades. Great!
Mqurice
PS: I think the politicans might get a bit nervous about ordering analog/analogue out of business when everyone is using one - they'll get a lot of old analog phones sent to them with demand for payment. But that's the way centrally planned economies work. |
