Gregg - Yes, we do differ, but maybe not substantially.
I will respond in brief to each of your paragraphs, but hasten to add that I am willing to wait until the outcome (note Ericy could also stop cdma2000 going forward, as Qcom is trying with WCDMA now).
"Swapping out RF equipment" Why? As I stated, WCDMA is a different air interface, and it complements GSM and more importantly, utilizes the GSM core architecture (as per the DoCoMo site and all the others). A migration for existing IS-95 customers is fine, but where does additional capacity come from for wideband services if it is still in the existing radio spectrum?
A carrier of 3G services is more likely NOT to sell minutes, but a subscription or data tariff. 3G services will be mainly IP based, so minutes is totally irrelevant. But I would agree to, "why does anyone care about 3G" particularly if there is no market yet.
Agree with the Japanese scenario for the reasons to go with WCDMA is to get a foothold in the market. The same is true of the Koreans of course (OT: who, if everyone has forgotten are taking Qcom to court for something like $100 million - believe it is early next year?).
Absolutely nobody I have met in the business refutes that CDMA has better spectral efficiency. IS-95 though is many years behind on its development. The factor of economy of scale and features does however play an important role. Roaming may not be important in the US, but it is elsewhere. GSM's deployment is massive and it is these operators and their customers that should be supported (and not just a few operators)
"Inexorable difference between CDMA and TDMA", really? The difference is not as large as you may think and the evolution of TDMA based systems have kept them in line or even ahead. Okay the long term prospects look good for CDMA as they emulate the TDMA based developments. But by then we would have moved on to 3G anyway, with TDMA still being the dominant legacy system. China now becomes the most important geo-political, accounting for 20% of the world population, it is imperative that mobile infrastructure is in place - currently very problematic for Qualcomm.
I do acknowledge facts at hand and yes, in the past CDMA was seen to be an unlikely workable system. Okay, it works. But i would still say that it is late to market and unlikely to ever get the dominance TDMA systems have today.
Mika |
