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

To: Randall Knight who wrote (8214)	4/2/2000 3:39:00 PM
From: Jack Bridges	Respond to of 13582

Randy, Yours is one of the most incisive contributions to this thread in quite a while. Thank you. Not to debate, but to offer a slightly different take on your reference to timing. "According to Dr. J during the latest conference call, the roll out of CDMA in any form for 3G is fine for QCOM. Their only interest is seeing it happen as quickly as possible. To this end they are pushing CDMA2000 because it requires no infrastructure replacement for current CDMA carriers and there are working ASICs for both the base stations and the handsets RIGHT NOW." I interpreted 'as quickly as possible' to infer that the short-comings of W-CDMA would be recognized sooner rather than later, not that the roll-out of a completed W-CDMA would generate revenue to QCOM sooner than otherwise. On another note, I forget which telecom analyst said it recently, but his summary remark was brilliant: 'All roads lead to Qualcomm'. Jack

To: Randall Knight who wrote (8214)	4/2/2000 6:40:00 PM
From: quidditch	Respond to of 13582

Two comments on your substantive, good post: The thought that there is a threat to QCOM's ASIC position if W-CDMA is proven to actually work, is adopted by carriers, and is installed and rolled out, is without merit. QCOM is the only ASIC provider who has demonstrated the ability to make and deliver CDMA 3G ASICs in any form. Who will be their competition? This may overstate the case. True that Q has the corner on CDMA chips and RF engineering, but Q lacks the expertise to work with the GSM network core. This is why Q acquired the small Euro engineering firm last month and why it is continusouly rumored to be acquiring a company with GSM expertise. If, indeed, DS is shown to work, there will need to be engineering expertise from both sides of the divide. BTW, did any one else note with surprise, if true, that DoCoMo claimed to have achieved 2Mbps througput in 1996 in the article posted by Ruff last night??? There is also the ability to offer 3G data rates for both air interfaces by installing HDR infrastructure or CSM chips (depending upon the vendor) and letting HDR take care of the data needs. Although I believe that this is the cheapest route to go for GSM carriers.... I think w molloy or Eric stated earlier this week that HDR may not be practical within a GSM RF/interface, as the spread nature of the HDR signal will create an unacceptable S/N ratio within the adjacent GSM channels. I do not know if that is the consensus view of the technically gifted on this thread. Steve

To: Randall Knight who wrote (8214)	4/2/2000 10:52:00 PM
From: Clarksterh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13582

Randall - The thought that there is a threat to QCOM's ASIC position if W-CDMA is proven to actually work, is adopted by carriers, and is installed and rolled out, is without merit. QCOM is the only ASIC provider who has demonstrated the ability to make and deliver CDMA 3G ASICs in any form. Who will be their competition? Whoever sets the W-CDMA standard. He who controls the standard has an advantage. I will bet you 100 to 1 that when W-CDMA is rolled out that Qualcomm's market share of W-CDMA ASICS will be at least 10% lower than their then share of CDMA-2000. Clark

To: Randall Knight who wrote (8214)	4/2/2000 11:07:00 PM
From: jackmore	Respond to of 13582

Randall, As a tack-on to your very fine post on W-CDMA I offer up the following postulated outcome for the 3G wars. There has been much valuable info and discussion here on the flavors of 3G, the timetables, vaporware, etc. How all this ends up playing out is, of course, the open question, and is what makes for interesting investing. Since data looks to be the major driver going forward, it seems to me that one possible macro scenario could go roughly like this (please keep in mind that I am technically challenged and not even that well versed in the many ins and outs of the telecom world): 1. Current CDMAOne networks upgrade to 1X, then add HDR. As I understand it, this could be largely accomplished by the end of 2001 or early 2002 and would provide most of the benefit of so-called full 3G. These 1X+HDR networks would be very competitive on a cost/performance basis, and the motivation to upgrade further may be minimal as the costs for the additional increment in performance from full 3G may prove to be too great. 2. Current GSM networks would only have GPRS within this same time frame, would be much less competitive and would then be faced with a choice: wait for W-CDMA OR add HDR to attain data capability similar to the 1X+HDR networks. (I don't know how GSM/HDR work together, and I understand the tech gurus here think there could be problems, but I believe IJ said at one point that they could. I will take his claim at face value for now).(They could even call it GSM-based HDR for political palatability). This leg of the scenario would unfold in Japan and the U.S. first where CDMA and GSM/TDMA go head-to-head, then could spread to Europe as the economic realities become more apparent to the carriers. In any case, as the GSMers go with HDR, they find (as the CDMA guys do) that the additional increment in performance is not worth the cost of full 3G. The end result of (1) and (2) is that full 3G, as currently conceived for either MC or DS modes never gets implemented on any significant wide-spread basis in Europe, the Americas, Japan, Korea or Australia. (China may be a different animal because of minimal installed base, so too India). The basic postulate is that 1X+HDR proves to be good enough from a cost/performance perspective for existing CDMA networks, and GSM+HDR proves to be good enough for existing GSM networks, at least until 4G comes along, whatever that turns out to be. If one assumes that W-CDMA is vaporware (at least for this timeframe) and that the GSM world will never go with CDMA2000, then this sort of default scenario would seem to have some reasonable likelihood of playing out. I know, I know, there is 1X Plus, 1X Extreme, GSM-based W-CDMA and any number of other marketing ploys and spectrum and political issues that could complicate the path. But the end point for this coming phase, the 3G phase, could turn out to be much simpler, and much different than currently conceived by many of the involved parties. HDR, IMO, could very well be a major factor in defining that end point. Comments, anyone? Best, jack