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

To: 100cfm who wrote (9067)	4/23/2000 7:03:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 13582

<Does Nokia actually have essential patents to WCDMA, if so it appears a deal with them is now a must instead of just a plus for Q.> I believe Ericy, Nokia and Q! all have patents [and NTT probably does in the Japanese version of DS-CDMA]. Q! has said the others can use their technology for the same royalties as other CDMA flavours. What Ericy, Nokia and NTT hope is that they can squeeze Q! to cut that royalty rate. They can say to Q! "Look, unless you cut your royalty rate for DS-CDMA, we won't license you to use our DS-CDMA technology and you'll get your royalty, but you'll be out of the ASICs business because we'll license your competitors but not you". Since the profits on ASICs are large, it would not be good for Q! to be cut out of the DS-CDMA ASICs business. But that supposes that the DS-CDMA people can make it work without Q! and especially, work better than Q!'s own 3G MC-CDMA plans. It's like a $$multi-trillion game of technical and market chicken. That's my theory anyway. <Will Q come out with a DS-CDMA chip before the competition? I have not heard management mention a time frame for a DS ASIC. > If Q! has the right to make those ASICs I dare say they'll succeed. The standard is unstable still - and so, probably, [in my guess], is the DS-CDMA technology in the real world test sites. I suppose Nokia and Ericy have been going flat out to get DS-CDMA ASICs made. Maybe they'll beat Q! but I think it's not an easy job. <I find it hard to believe that Nokia and Co. are actually convincing carriers that they will have working DS-CDMA ASICs in the time frame they are promising when they all have failed to date to produce up to par MC-CDMA ASICS which are less complicated.> I find it hard to believe too. It doesn't cost them anything to bluster, issue press releases, announce dates etc. So they are off down that track, giving Nokia orders for DS-CDMA for NTT in Japan [according to Tero]. But it DOES cost them serious money [$36bn or so in the UK with more bids to go] and they can't leave real money sitting rotting for too long [though Globalstar seems happy to take the lead in that - leaving a billion minutes a month and $4bn rotting in space]. But $36bn is a LOT more than $4bn so I dare say there are serious and real and early plans that those service providers have for the UK 3G spectrum. They won't want to wait too long before they get something up and running. Vodafone will want to install some equipment in the UK next year. What will they install? Maybe there is some DS-CDMA basics which will be available. It seems odd to me. It won't be the weird NTT version. So, will Nokia, Ericy and co really have something ready for DS-CDMA or will Ericy, Q! and Vodafone spring a big surprise on everyone and send fleets of basestations out of San Diego into the UK to provide service late next year including HDR. Ericy would do very well if they could do that! Ericy did not buy the Q! infrastructure division and licences to play pat-a-cake and lose money and market share. Vodafone bought Mannesmann too, so they have got some serious plans. The German spectrum auctions should be even more fun than the British. The Japanese 3G spectrum wars will be simply staggering. CDMA WWeb is coming, it is coming big and it is coming fast! Mqurice