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

To: Richard Chow who wrote (4077)	2/28/2000 7:42:00 PM
From: w molloy	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 5195

Hello Richard 1. CDMA in general (wide OR narrowband) still has a problem with acceptance (witness the on/off again situation in China) in relation to GSM. Regarding narrowband CDMA - It has excellent acceptance in the US, Korean, Japanese and some Latin American markets. The Chinese market is being negotiated as we speak. However, it is worth noting that the largest GSM network to date is in China. 2. Even with CDMA acceptance, QCOM has already won the day since narrowband CDMA seems to be the more accepted standard. QCOM is doing very well with current 2G narrow band CDMA. However, next generation digital systems will use some form of wideband CDMA. IDC signed an cross license agreement with QCOM in 1994, in return for a one-off payment of $5million. It is disputed whether this agreement extends to 3G - wideband (i.e. WCDMA)systems. QCOM holds several wideband CDMA patents, and also sponsors the cdma2000 standard, which has a high chance of adoption within the US. It is unlikely that cdma2000 will be adopted in markets that are currently GSM. NOK has entered into a WCDMA development agreement with IDC. IDC is also states that NOK is licensee for IDC WCDMA intellectual property. NOK is clearly looking for a way NOT to use QCOM WCDMA IPR. In other words, I am puzzled as to why I should invest in IDC (not knocking it, just researching it). IDC is a risk play, with two components. *1. The ERICY TDMA patent dispute* IDC is claiming essential patents for TDMA. ERICY disputes this. IDC lost a similar case against MOT. If IDC win, they could claim a royalty backpayment against GSM, IS-136 (US TDMA), and PHS/PDC (Japanese TDMA) systems vendors. I've asked the IDC hawks how they would collect backpayments and to speculate on the rate 2. WCDMA This is a 3G system. Several independent commentators are now predicting that large scale commercial 3G system rollout will be later rather than sooner, and is several years away. How IDC patents stack up against QCOM (and others) patents has to be tested, either through negotiation, patent pooling or in court. w.

To: Richard Chow who wrote (4077)	2/29/2000 1:12:00 AM
From: Gus	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5195

Richard, CDMA in general (wide OR narrowband) still has a problem with acceptance (witness the on/off again situation in China) in relation to GSM China Telecom and China Unicom have over 35-40M GSM subscribers. China Unicom has around 5M GSM subs but less than 1M CDMAOne subscribers in 4 trial sites operated by Motorola, Lucent, Nortel and Samsung. All 4 manufacturers have TDMA and CDMA products so they will go with what the carriers want. Ericsson, for example, just cut a GPRS/technology transfer deal with China Unicom even though it bought the QCOM infrastructure business with $400M of vendor financing to be provided by QCOM. Also, there are some people on RB claiming that China has developed its own TD-SCDMA which is a moot point given the chip-level system integration trajectory of the communication IC business. 2. Even with CDMA acceptance, QCOM has already won the day since narrowband CDMA seems to be the more accepted standard Define winning. QCOM won the uncontested race to 2G CDMAOne (IS95). QCOM PR has successfully wedded itself to the image that 2G CDMAOne IS also 3G CDMA, but the facts do not back up that claim, which should be more properly seen as posturing even though it has done wonders for the stock. The underlying business is off to an underperforming start already. The irregular pattern of Newbridge Networks performance over the last 7 quarters comes to mind except that expectations are higher in QCOM's case over a longer period of time. Globally, Analog and TDMA have 60+M subs in 44 countries. GSM, a variant of TDMA, has 220+M subs in 142 countries. CDMAOne only has 50+M subs in 35 countries with more than half in South Korea. No contest. There are 30M analog subscribers that QCOM has not been able to convert to 2G CDMAOne so that tells you a lot of things. There are at least 5 companies with IPRs in IS95 (2G CDMAOne) and more and more people are starting to verify the fact that there are between 5 to 7 alternative sources of complete 3G WCDMA IPRs. Notwithstanding its lawsuit with IDC for 2G TDMA/GSM, there is enough information in the public domain to suggest the strong possiblity that Ericsson, Motorola, ATT Wireless, Nokia, IDC, Golden Bridge and maybe some others looking to break into the top 5 are going to coalesce around a 3G WCDMA platform that will already start to scale into 4G. Note that IDC and Golden Bridge share a common link in Donald Schilling. His 50 or so broadband CDMA patents at IDC and his 9 or so patents at Golden Bridge, which has a licensing agreement with ATT (TDMA), are supported by a high-powered and pioneering intellectual paper trail in spread spectrum technology that dates back all the way to 1960. The conjecture is that Nokia is the vendor most aggressively using elements of both complementary technologies to develop the TDD (time division duplex) version of spread spectrum that will span 3G and 4G. There are 8 REAL WORLD WCDMA trials going on to only 1 CDMA2000 trial (SKorea). It should go without saying but, do your own research. We have to restate the obvious around here more times than is necessary, actually. <g> Gus