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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (39935)	9/7/1999 1:08:00 AM
From: Valueman	Respond to of 152472

Maurice: Free ThinPhones in the US! With a QCP-1960 priced at $99 at Sprint, they offer a $50 rebate, as well as $50 for my old 100 pound Panasonic from 1991. Actually, I'm up a dollar--10 free minutes!!!! Snazzy silver blue color. No accessories at Sprint though. Had to drive a block down the road and get the slim external battery at a PrimeCo store, good for 6 hours talk/10 day standby with total phone weight at 6 ounces. My minibrowser stands at the ready to do data. (NOTE: Newsgroupers warn that firing it up now, even though many Sprint networks will connect you, will lock you into a horrid pricing plan that might be tough to escape.) The CDMA data wave is crushing the GSM attempts to patchwork faster speeds. Out of the gate at 14.4 in the US(outdoing the veteran GSM in its rookie season), followed by 86K in Japan soon, and 144K in Korea soon after that. All with some cards and software. So simple. So easy. A well defined path. Another path leading to the road that leads to QCOM.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (39935)	9/7/1999 1:27:00 AM
From: Yamakita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

The pricing plans for DoCoMo are convoluted, to put it mildly. The basic plan that most people choose is a total ripoff compared to IDO's. NTT charges 4,500 yen as a basic monthly charge, PLUS 40 yen per minute! Thus, if we barely use the phone at all, say 40 minutes per month, we pay 4,500 yen 1,600 yen charges ----- 6,100 yen (about US$55) IDO, meanwhile, gives you 40 minutes of talking time for the standard fee of 4,500 yen, which is almost 50 percent cheaper than DoCoReam. No per-minute charges till you top 40 minutes on the timer. But wait, we are talking about local calls! NTT of course charges by distance as well as by minutes. Distance is not a factor for IDO's cdma scheme: you can call anywhere in the damn country for the same price as calling next door. The deals get even better for extended use. So if I am calling Osaka or Fukuoka, or anywhere outside Tokyo, on a regular basis, I can expect to pay probably double--probably triple--that 6,100 yen monthly figure, if not more (I haven't checked exactly what those prices are, but if they're anything like normal NTT pricing, you can expect a proper gouging). CDMA is WAY cheaper to use in Japan. I for one, who continues to be reamed by NTT to the tune of $500/month just to use the Net whenever I want, would love nothing better than to see IDO/DDI annihilate the greedy dinosaur pricks. Where the hell are my blood pressure pills! Yamaqita