Tero,
Let's go through the logic of your previous post.
"Daniel, telecom people I know in Asia seem to think that China has already decided to not to expand the current CDMA networks much and go with a national GSM policy instead. The recent announcement that China is banning further mobile telecom joint ventures with foreigners is designed to foster rapid growth of Chinese GSM manufacturing and ultimately export industry. When industrial policy such as this is decided on, it usually sticks. China is not officially saying anything about planning an all-GSM future, because they do not want Charlene on their backs. However, next year's big planned GSM expansion contracts should make the point"
This makes a fair amount of sense, although I only understand the logic to some extent. I suppose the argument would be that CHina has already "invested" in GSM, why get involved in something new? although WCDMA IS going to be something new. And when one compares the amount of infrastructure and number of present day subs with projected numbers, the installed/existing base is really very small. I would think one would want to build a foundation that most efficiently upgrades to the future. Is this GSM? I don't know the answer although I suspect that this is where the standards fight really comes into play. The "dominant" standard will, due to economies of scale, be the most economical. So I think China has to make sure that they're aligned behind the dominant standard, just like everyone else.
"And here is where the 3G debate becomes relevant. NTT-Docomo is taking a dim view on CDMA-compatible 3G solutions, because they would directly aid its competitors currently building IS-95 networks in Japan. *And* the Japanese now see all-GSM China as perhaps the most lucrative market for their own W-CDMA products. Put this together with the huge European GSM market and the North American GSM alliance that is pushing for W-CDMA in North America and the pressure to push through W-CDMA becomes considerable. No matter how fast Nokia has come up, if the W-CDMA debate breaks in its favor, there will be a sharp uptick. After that it is probably getting toppy for a while."
I suspect that you may be right about NTT. I also think that implicit in this point of view is the idea that WCDMA is in fact no better than CDMA2000, that this argument that "WCDMA is an entirely new technology built from ground up with view towards optimizing performance etc", is a croque of doodoo. Otherwise, why would NTT have to worry about IS95 competitors, their stuff would be better, although both of these "standards" are so powerful I'm not sure what better means anyway.And for Japanese selling into China, well that's the same situation as for the Chinese. Everyone wants to be aligned behind the dominant standard, although if everyone IS aligned behind the dominant standard, what's the big advantage in being just like everyone else, unless of course you happen to be QCOM.
"If the W-CDMA really gets approved in its non-IS-95-compatible incarnation, there will probably be a sharp downtick in Qualcomm's price and a big boost in Ericsson's.
The entire rational of your post is predicated on the assumption that WCDMA does not need Q blesing IMO. So... the post should start by saying that " I , Tero K. believe that WCDMA will be able to move forward without QCOM. As a result China will go GSM, NTT will go GSM etc.." But that's not a jump you're ready to take yet is it?
You do seem to be making progress though, that I'll admit:-)
Dave
Tero |
