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

To: LBstocks who wrote (4863)	1/5/2000 10:05:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

AfricaSpeaks 'confident' about system WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 05, 2000 9:51 PM - Africa News Service Johannesburg (Business Day, January 5, 2000) - A consortium bidding for SA's third cellular network licence says phenomenal growth in the share price of its US partner should dispel any doubts about its choice of technology. AfricaSpeaks was criticised by rival bidders for proposing a mixture of technologies including Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), a system widely used in the US but alien to Africa. Its partner for the CDMA technology is Qualcomm, which ended last year as one of the top performing stocks on Nasdaq. The share price has risen from a low of $25 to a high of $662. "This shows the technology works and is accepted," said AfricaSpeaks financial manager Abdool Ahmed. "We were quite confident when we selected CDMA and at that time Qualcomm was underperforming. Now we are even more confident because we can see the support it is getting." Its shares tripled in July after Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson agreed to support CDMA as the standard for third-generation wireless networks. Last month Qualcomm announced a four-for-one stock split and an increase in its common stock to 3-billion shares. If AfricaSpeaks wins SA's licence it would use CDMA technology in rural areas and the more traditional GSM system in urban areas. Other bidders shun this route, pointing out that CDMA is incompatible with GSM, so users with a CDMA handset would be limited to making calls within restricted areas. AfricaSpeaks says it chose CDMA because, once a third-generation cellphone technology is introduced, CDMA can be upgraded more cost-effectively than GSM. A decision on which of the six bidders will win the licence has been postponed as members of the adjudicating body, the SA Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, are under investigation. The auditor-general is probing allegations, including those of corruption and possible links with some of the bidding consortiums. By Lesley Stones