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To: Eric L who wrote (429)	8/2/1999 12:29:00 AM
From: Clarksterh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

Eric - without a SIM or USIM you can't authenticate to a GSM network. For this reason it would seem to me that if not incorporated it is difficult (if not impossible) to implement cdma2000 (or cdmaOne) in Europe, or roam there. Perhaps I'm missing something, in which case I would appreciate being better informed. I would only point out that one of first compromises reached in the 3g wars was that the 3g system would be both GSM-MAP and IS-41 compatible. I have no idea how this was accomplished, if in fact it is even spec'd yet, but given this agreement I'd say that it is a done deal that roaming between Europe and US will be possible. Whether it will be done with a SIM-type card or a built in device, ... is another question and one to which I do not know the answer. Note, just for the record, a SIM-type card can have lots of different (albeit related) functions - link encryption, roaming, phone activation, address book portability - but none absolutely require SIM-type cards. For instance, encryption and roaming can be phone unique instead of SIM-unique, phone activation could be done with a call, and address book portability can be done via Bluetooth type systems. Given this list and having thought about it more, I now concede that SIM's are, for some functions, a good idea. For instance, the lack of Bluetooth technology (or some other readily available standard) at this point means that address books need to be re-entered when using a new phone if SIM-type technology is not also present. Clark PS You were correct that I was being too simplistic when I said that it wasn't possible to make true GSM SIM cards work in a CDMAOne system. Of course it is possible, although it probably requires changes not only at the phone, but also in the network protocols and even more sophistication to allow legacy CDMAOne encryption and roaming, ... to continue to work. My point was that I agreed that it isn't a completely trivial change to add backwards compatible GSM SIM cards to an existing CDMAOne network.