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Technology Stocks : The New Qualcomm - a S&P500 company -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: moat who wrote (1641)	9/17/1999 7:23:00 PM
From: Scott Zion	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

moat - I'll try to give this a shot...if I'm wrong, hopefully Clark Hare, Eric L, engineer etc will correct me. I have a very theoretical question: According to information theory, is CDMA at the theoretical limit in terms of efficiency? No, CDMA is an access method...how to share a resource (e.g. cell with many mobiles). In terms of information theory, there is source coding and channel coding. Information theory is a difficult and involved subject...however, Shannon proved that a channel has a fixed capacity. That rates above this capacity are impossible. And error free communication is possible for rates below this capacity. In addition, he also showed that there is a lower limit to the amount of compression (source entropy) for perfect reconstruction (lossless data compression). Why ask such question? In the very long-run, will someone else be able to invent a better mouse trap? Sure, why not. This is a fast big money game and a lot of R&D dollars are being spent. Qualcomm realizes this and IMO is responding accordingly. However, as Eric L has pointed out, keeping an eye on GPRS, EDGE, etc. is important. At the theoretical limit, CDMA is 3-4 times more efficient than TDMA right? Yes, that is my understanding. What's the current state of the technology at in the field? See above (GPRS, EDGE, OFDM, CDMA2000, HDR, W-CDMA etc). Also as Gregg Powers has pointed out, establishing a standard is a difficult process. regards Scott

To: moat who wrote (1641)	9/23/1999 12:34:00 PM
From: engineer	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 13582

for the system modulation that CDMA uses, it is very near the theoretical limit for the system. Other wise Dr. V would be pretty upset...8^)... Another way to look at it is that the DSP capability is expanding by Moores law as well (I thought he just did Intel stuff?)...and the power of them is increasing. As I have said before on this thread, GSM was invented at a time when the DSP power was at one level and by the time CDMA came out it took advantage of the increase in DSP power to increase the spectral effiecieny. those that would disrupt QC in the next 3-5 years would have to be publishing and implementing today to make it out there. And then they would have to get the carriers to change alot of infrastructure. One interesting note on the niche that QC took advantage of.... the world had been frozen wiht analog services for a long time and the digital revolution that has taken place over the last 3-5 years and for the next 10 years has been a long time in coming. QC was perfectly postioned with the right product at the right time when this explosion took place, made the exact right technology choices ( which is what IMJ and Dr. V are absolutely the worlds BEST at), and then executed this. It was a point in time which will be hard to find again. Minature versions of this will exist, but this is similar to Intel gaining the base when IBM made the PC a standard. If Mot had lowered their costs and been 8 months earlier to market and allowed IBM to lic the MOT processor, then it would have been MOT inside today and not Intel inside. Again, in reading the christensen book, the disruptive technologies are out there, but alot of signs can show you what they are. It is better to understand what the influences are and how they are developed, than to run around and try to understand each and every little technology announcement that comes out and try to figure out if the marketing hype means anything. I would look for the next giant disruption to come as the interenet access and appliances come to market. I am not sure that Intel is well postioned for this disruption as they took too long to take up a position in this lower level processor market. ARM is well positioned, but situational. the internet access business itself may be disruptive as someone could offer service which disrupts people like Sprint and ATT and ATI/vodfone. And the applicances may not have an OS in them at all, so what would usoft do? Lots of fun to come....