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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bernard Levy who wrote (5781)	11/1/1999 1:32:00 AM
From: Moneylover	Respond to of 12823

An interesting wireless deal: stockhouse.ca

To: Bernard Levy who wrote (5781)	11/1/1999 5:41:00 AM
From: Rehan Mahmud	Respond to of 12823

Bernard: thanks for the explanation of VOFDM . As another layperson (Biological Sciences), I appreciate your taking the time to address this issue.I was telling my wife the other day, that only a few years ago I would have only been able to invest in Last Mile if a) We were "friends or family" or after the investment bankers were 'done' with the company. vive la internet.

To: Bernard Levy who wrote (5781)	11/1/1999 7:07:00 AM
From: axial	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Bernard - Thanks for your remarks. After a weekend of research on the subject{s}, I came up with a couple of notes on VOFDM which required more digging. The first was a reference to phased arrays, in the particular context of resistance to multipath interference. Subsequent quick reads seemed to indicate that VOFDM needed the equivalent of multiple antennas to successfully reject such interference. The second relates indirectly to your second point: " This being said, the algorithmic implementation must be incredibly complex, and the design of ICs implementing VOFDM may take a lot more time than CSCO expects." My (layman's) take on the VOFDM system was that it was inherently more complex than the WOFDM implementation. When I stated that I regarded the two technologies as a "wash", I meant that they appeared to my uneducated eye to achieve rough equivalence in performance, to the end-user. However, in evaluating these technologies, infrastructure costs and reliability will be important considerations. That is, the cost/performance benefits of WOFDM appeared to be greater than those of VOFDM. Looking beyond the immediate issues of IPRs, and specific technical criteria, investors like myself have had to make a "Kentucky windage" guess as to which foreseeable technology offers the best (optimal) chance of gaining worldwide acceptance in the area of broadband wireless. In this context, I have placed a premium on questions of cost, simplicity, reliability and ease of implementation. Lacking the knowledge and insight of many on this thread, I have fallen back on what you might call the "design philosophy" of Wi-LAN as expressed in its products so far, and on the demonstrations of future implementations in the present. Extrapolation involves Wi-LAN's plan to scale up the next implementation of WOFDM to 100 Mbps., achieving IEEE 1394 throughput in both the home and WLL markets. Concurrently, their ASICs, which should be in production by the spring, will get cheaper through economies of scale, and design improvements. Regardless of how the debate in America evolves, part of the investor's guess goes to the question of the world market, especially that in underdeveloped countries, where the market is huge. Here, again, the requirements are low cost, simplicity, ruggedness, and ease of implementation. While I'm not sure of how the VOFDM/WOFDM IPR question will work out, I don't see VOFDM being more readily adopted than WOFDM. On the contrary, my money's still with WOFDM, and Wi-LAN. That said, I would be a lot less sure of my investment, were it not for this debate. Thanks again. Best wishes, Jim Kayne