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

To: quidditch who wrote (3388)	11/18/1999 11:28:00 AM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

A question: I may have missed this, but will there be dual mode Q phones that can handle both 1xrtt and HDR? That would seem to be a Q lover's dream option. The iMSM5500....it's due out in late 2001. BTW...I agree with most of your observations on the KT investment. The money involved isnt the issue....I just wish that the demand was so great from the operators that they didnt have to do it. If HDR works out as promised then the $200m will be a drop in the bucket. Slacker

To: quidditch who wrote (3388)	11/18/1999 11:45:00 AM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

November 18, 1999 The Global Search Continues For a Single Wireless Standard By STEPHANIE N. MEHTA Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL The global phone is coming. Sort of. Consolidation in the wireless industry is prompting cellular-phone makers to develop gadgets that bridge the jumble of wireless networks around the world. AT&T Corp. and British Telecommunications PLC, which are forming an international venture, are pushing hard for "multimode" phones that will work on different networks on either side of the Atlantic. These network-agile phones may prove to be the only viable option for globetrotters who want to use their phones anytime, anywhere. Some industry executives had hoped the next generation of wireless networks, designed to handle Internet and data traffic, would coalesce along a single standard. But instead wireless carriers are as entrenched as ever, favoring next-generation technologies that closely resemble existing networks that cost billions of dollars to build. A 'Standards Tower of Babel' "There will be multiple broadband-wireless standards," said Mark Lowenstein, an analyst for the Yankee Group, a consulting firm in Boston. "We're expecting this standards Tower of Babel to continue for the foreseeable future." There are a half-dozen standards for wireless service in place today, ranging from Global System for Mobile Communications, or GSM, the digital mode favored by most of Europe, to Code Division Multiple Access, or CDMA, the upstart technology favored by the likes of Sprint Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp. By the end of next year, at least two phone makers are expected to introduce devices that operate on GSM networks and networks built around yet another digital standard, Time Division Multiple Access, or TDMA. "If GSM and TDMA converge, a dominant standard in terms of coverage and subscribers is formed," said Daniel Hesse, president of AT&T's wireless unit. AT&T operates on the TDMA standard; its partner British Telecom is a GSM operator. Other phone companies are promoting phones that seamlessly forge CDMA and GSM networks. "As consolidation happens, there is a need for companies to create and develop products that can seamlessly go across these technologies and protocols," said Ralph Pini, a senior vice president for technology and product development at Motorola Inc. "As we get some of the customer requests, we will respond to them and create products around these needs." To be sure, some customers already can use their phones in many markets around the world. The most popular standard world-wide is GSM, which boasts more than 230 million users, according to the Yankee Group. Phones introduced last year allow customers to use their GSM phones in the U.S., Asia and Europe. Competition Likely to Increase But GSM has attracted only about five million users in North America. The biggest carriers in the U.S. need to come up with alternate ways to deliver global reach to their customers. CDMA has more than 45 million customers world-wide, and digital TDMA has about 33 million customers. The competition among standards isn't likely to dissolve as carriers move to the next, or third, generation of wireless networks -- sometimes called "3G" for short. For starters, the deployment of 3G in the U.S. and Europe remains several years away; carriers have invested billions of dollars in their current networks and are looking for easy, less costly ways to upgrade their systems for data. Some analysts believe existing CDMA carriers will embrace CDMA2000, a technology that promises to deliver data to a wireless device at speeds faster than traditional laptop computers. It is expected that GSM and TDMA carriers will adopt another form of broadband wireless technology. "They are not going to be compatible," said Mr. Lowenstein of the Yankee Group. In some ways, carriers actually prefer a world with multiple standards. Today the companies use their standards as a marketing tool to differentiate themselves: GSM carriers in the U.S. boast that their phones work in Europe, CDMA carriers trot out studies that suggest their networks produce better sound quality. But CDMA-only handsets, for example, also serve to keep customers from taking their phones and jumping to a competing carrier. If customers could use their phone on any network, they might be more inclined to switch wireless phone companies much the way they switch long-distance carriers. Furthermore, not all carriers are aggressively pushing to deliver world-wide wireless services. "I'm not sure how much market there is" in providing international wireless services, said Richard Lynch, chief technology officer of Bell Atlantic's wireless unit. "It's a goal to be reached someday, but I don't think it is a guarantee of success in the marketplace."