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

To: John Biddle who wrote (1689)	9/19/1999 10:57:00 AM
From: Clarksterh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13582

John - . For example, several commented that the 1,000 hour standby time announcement didn't come with a battery specification. While true, this may be short sighted. There is no standards organization which controls the conditions under which units are tested for 'standby time' and 'talk time'. Battery size is only one of the issues; others are cell size, unit mode (which kind of standby does the operator use), ... . The bottom line is that I wouldn't take the numbers given in unit specs as better than a very broad ballpark estimate. If close to true, this is a major threat! While cheap GSM phones won't stop the CDMA juggernaut's progress in places where it's already dominant or without GSM competition (Korea, USA, Japan, etc.) it will make it much harder for CDMA to get a foothold in GSMland. Untrue. CDMA has never been better than GSM on an equipment cost per channel, and this is not likely to change in the near future. (Thus do the Tero's of the world continually harp on it) CDMA is inherently significantly more complex than TDMA and GSM has greater economies of scale, so this should hardly be a surprise. CDMA's benefit comes in other areas such as number of basestations needed per number of users, or ease of adding new cells. As equipment costs plummet for all standards, equipment becomes less and less of the total cost and set-up costs and land fees become more of the cost, and it is on these that CDMA saves money. (Thus, for instance, CDMA would have been completely non-economic in the early 1990's when GSM came out.) That's 360 to 432kbps. If true, this too could have a big effect on the GSM titans, giving them yet another reason to extend what they have, rather than switch to CDMA and HDR. This is nothing new. This is probably a reference to EDGE/GPRS (I always forget which is which). Again the issue is system cost, not whether TDMA can be made to broadcast data. The only real issue in the ADI release is when Qualcomm can put all the RF processing on the same chip. The problem is that CDMA is more complex, so I don't know the answer. But on the whole this announcement worries me not at all. Clark

To: John Biddle who wrote (1689)	9/19/1999 11:15:00 AM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

John, << ADI announcement ... full and fair appreciation of the potential competitive issues is important, whether you're bullish or not >> Good post and good questions. << reference to tri-band phones. Do they mean tri-mode? I thought GSM was universal and only needed one band >> GSM in Europe is 900 MHz and 1800 MHz (Orange & Mercury one2one e.g.) and the Americas are 1900 MHz. Throw AMPS in (like the dual mode GSM phones in the US and we have 800 MHz as well. GSM "World Phones" are dual band 900 MHz and 1900 MHz, 900 MHz and 1800 MHz, and tri-band are 900,1800,1900 and may possibly be 800,900,1900. Outside the US you will have additional spectrum for 3G out there in the future. TDMA operates in 800 & 1900 MHZ spectrum primarily so put em all together and add the ATT-BT thing and there are certainly implications for cdma growth. If indeed, the recently announced ATT TDMA network overhaul is in fact an EDGE implementation (skipping GPRS altogether) then there are more implications. At the very least the GSM & UWCC alliance announced in January has significant potential implications as it relates to 2G or 2.5G network choices and GSM, TDMA, v. CDMA subscriber growth for the short to medium haul. << I remain quite bullish on the Q, just want to see all sides >> Same here. Our freind Tero keeps waxing poetic about the difficulty of manufacturing a GSM/CDMA handset. I am wondering if this chipset combined with a CDMA chipset might have some positive implications for cdma (thinking about Voda,AT,BAM). - Eric -

To: John Biddle who wrote (1689)	9/19/1999 11:42:00 AM
From: moat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

CDMA standby time projections by Viterbi: cdg.org

To: John Biddle who wrote (1689)	9/20/1999 7:27:00 AM
From: Jack Bridges	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13582

John, I'm not qualified to provide any answers to your very prescient queries. We do need answers and I note that ADI has outperformed QCOM on a relative basis since March, including a new high on 9/17. The Caxton/idler summary of the Analysts meeting included the statement that 'CDMA is the only wireless technologythat is internet capable.' That statement was made after the ADI announcement. The BT/ATT Alliance announcement, IHT version, included the statement: " -- work toward developing common standards for so-called third generation mobile telephones that are expected to be introduced from the year 2001." That was also after ADI said they'd have answers to GSM's prayers from early 2000 These three very important statements, appearing within days of each other, are in apparent conflict, unless BT/ATT are engaging in a bit of face-saving as they move toward CDMA. Jack Bridges

To: John Biddle who wrote (1689)	9/20/1999 2:31:00 PM
From: Robert Sheldon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13582

Regarding ADI's Othello chipset announcement, I think George Gilder sums it up best . . . “This is the breakthrough in smart radio technology that the GTR has been predicting since its inception. Our smart radio issue focused on Analog Devices, which says that the technology is adaptable to CDMA. As the minority system, CDMA will benefit more than GSM from the creation of receivers independent of modulation schemes. In a world of smart radios, the system with the best acoustics and features will prevail rather than the system with the widest coverage. Nonetheless, this initial rollout of chips for GSM is beneficial to the existing standard and may delay pressures to move to the third generation CDMA system. It illustrates the perils of Joy's Law (the smartest people are never all in your own company) and Qualcomm's need to get the world's chip companies competing to innovate in CDMA. In any case, the current CDMA systems being rolled out by SprintPCS and Airtouch are still the world leaders in wireless data and there is alot more to come from Qualcomm.”