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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnG who wrote (33758)	6/30/1999 10:20:00 PM
From: puzzlecraft	Respond to of 152472

OFDM: Yes, the more users assigned to a base-station box, the less bandwidth available per subscriber. If the base station is set up for 1,000 subscribers (an ISP setting?), the average subscriber should see more than 30 Kbps, as all 1000 subscribers assigned would not be online simultaneously. The base station is $9,000, so if the setting was for 100 subscribers, a per subscriber connect rate of 240Kbps ("after giving effect to overhead loss") should be doable, which from my perspective should yield a very nominal/attractive ISP investment per customer. However, a customer-end product is not yet available and I can't find anything indicating when one might be. Wi-LAN is expected to "double" the "30 Mbps data rate within the next six months", so the per subscriber figures per base-station box will improve. BTW, Wi_LAN says "W-OFDM" as a variant of OFDM for which is has some IPR. The company, Wi-LAN does not have its technology down to ASICs, if and when it does, perhaps mobile devices will be possible. The box uses unlicensed spectrum (2.4-2.4835 ghz), so it is more likely to appeal to places with less high bandwidth wired infrastructure (rural within the United States, many places outside the U.S.) Someone else should chip in and mention whether antenna omni-directionality is a problem for a hypothetical mobile product using this frequency. Also, I haven't seen anything to say that the W-OFDM method can't be used for other frequency ranges. My main point was to find out whether or not OFMD posed a threat to the big Q, I definitely don't see a problem in the next year or two, perhaps the more paranoid and/or knowledgeable will speak up. I'm learning a lot as I try to shepherd my QCOM investment. John