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Technology Stocks : Interdigital Communication(IDCC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gus who wrote (3465)	1/20/2000 11:05:00 PM
From: Bux	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5195

That still doesn't change the fact that QCOM's upgrade path to 3g only works with the CDMA infrastructure of carriers with only 42-50 million subscribers. The TDMA/GSM carriers with 400 million subscribers will probably follow any combination of fixed wireless and the GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA upgrade path. Just common sense, right? It's not that simple. The Qualcomm upgrade paths will work with any technology. Certainly it is easier to upgrade from IS-95 to CDMA2000 than from GSM but let's look at the potential upgrade paths for GSM since that is what GSM carriers have to build from. It's true that the GSM networks will need to acquire packet capability either before 3G or simultaneously with the 3G upgrade. GPRS claims this ability. From there carriers can upgrade to either CDMA2000 or WCDMA. Qualcomm would prefer a converged standard to achieve maximum interoperability and economies of scale but they will receive the same royalties in either scenario. In the WCDMA scenario there will probably be additional royalties due to other companies in addition which will make WCDMA the more expensive option. Certainly consumers should prefer CDMA2000 for cost and interoperability reasons but IDC and other players probably prefer WCDMA since it is likely they have IPR (or more IPR) involved here but without the voluntary support of other players that will involve lawsuits to achieve. If IDC has bonafide valuable IPR it is likely that the other players will recognize this voluntarily and pay fair and reasonable royalties based on the value of IDC's IPR contribution. This is a grey area and the true value will not be known until either the contracts are made public or the revenues show up on IDC's balance sheet, hence my caution towards an investment in IDC. Bux