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To: Iris Shih who wrote (22298)	7/25/1999 11:11:00 AM
From: drsvelte	Respond to of 69867

"Harry, are you familiar with third-generation(3G) wireless devices. Do you think it will be the big selling point for the next generation of wireless?" I don't know the answer, Iris, but I'll bet you just got your copy of SmartMoney magazine!

To: Iris Shih who wrote (22298)	7/25/1999 1:26:00 PM
From: ynot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69867

investors/fund manager appear to be betting on RIM but this is really 2nd generation...two way pager other 2nd generation, imho are PHCM MCOM and PCMS which seemed to blast off after i posted a note about it here what exactly is 3rd generation? :) once decent UI's/programs and handhelds hit the market i suspect that 30-50% of www access will be by wireless adsl/cable may have more to do with the convergence of telephony/cable than www access in the future, imho hope i didn't confuse you more ynot ;) ps don't pay too much attention to the rags, especially herring/business2

To: Iris Shih who wrote (22298)	7/26/1999 5:40:00 AM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69867

Iris, >>Harry, are you familiar with third-generation(3G) wireless devices. >>Do you think it will be the big selling point for the next >>generation of wireless? The 3G standard has not been decided on yet as far as I know. They are still debating things such as frequency and protocols. As for whether 3G products will provide the next great consumer push for wireless, I believe it will but not necessarily at the rates predicted by some of the analyst. We are seeing some of what 3G is supposed to be eventually capable of in the form of the LMDS/MMDS deployments, slightly different technology but the same intent. In simple terms 3G is intended to allow for great capacity and more varied data formats to be transferred on wireless. Unfortunately, what that greater capacity is used for is the question. There has to be the content to attract people to utilize the extra capacity. This is what makes your question difficult to answer. The adoption of handset is a good case study. The adoption of wireless handset has really been a marketing driven effort as opposed to a consumer demand driven effort. The adoption of wireless handset in Canada was actually originally very slow to take off. Most of the first demand besides business men came when the carriers started marketing it as a safety product for women. Once they reached a certain subscriber base, the carriers were able to drop the price per minute to attract a more diverse subscriber base. But, they also needed to change the pricing model to be more flexible in order to attract more users who are only occassional users. The plan is to eventually have the wireless local loop (WLL) where you have one wireless phone which you can use at home or on the road. You only keep one phone number. In under developed countries WLL is the tehcnology of choice as they don't need to construct massive above or below ground land line infrastructure. >>Also what's your opinion on cable access and dsl? You need to separate the consumer market from the business market when discussing this issue. Cable modems have the early lead in the consumer market right now, but they are not a presence in the business market right now as far as I know. You need to see symmetric cable modems deployed before the business customers will hop on board. From memory, in Canada 70 percent of homes have accesss to cable and most of that cable in capable of symmteric access ( ie.. you can sent data up streat and receive data down stream at the same rates). In the US ,only 50 percent of home have access to cable and a large percent of that cable infrastructure has not yet been upgraded to symmetric access. The really money tends to be made on business customers. The larger installed base give it a early lead, but they have not won yet. DSL is only good if you customer is within 3 Km of a switching station. The results are gaps in service. The early deployments are still non-symmetric DSL . Symmetric DSL is supposed to coming out some time this year. As with cable modems the real money is to be made on business customers. The RBOC's have been slow to deploy DSL because they still make good money leasing T1/T3 lines. The projected margins on DSL will be a lot less given the current pricing environment. The RBOC's are under pressure to deploy though because the cable companies will take over that business if and when they have their infrastructure upgrade to symmetric access. Deployment will be expensive as they need to upgrade aging infrastructure.

To: Iris Shih who wrote (22298)	7/26/1999 6:07:00 AM
From: Johnny Canuck	Respond to of 69867

If you are asking if there is a clear winner yet. That answer is no. At the current time though there appears to be sufficient business for every one. There is a blurring of the lines in terms of the cable companies and the phone companies. Cable companies want to provide telephone services to use up their capacity, while phone companies want access to the higher margin value added program delivery services that the cable companies provide. I believe the competition will get greater over the next few years. There is no front runner at this point for the hearts and minds of consumers and businesses of these broader range of services. It will come down to the quality of the service and the attractiveness of content.