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

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (9074)	4/23/2000 9:44:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

Dennis, there is going to be about $200bn in 3G spectrum value transacted in Japan. Q! is very sensible to try to get a piece of that if there is to be a beauty contest [they'll need a Japanese face such as Hitachi owning most of the consortium and Charlene's backing to have any chance]. $200bn comes from Japan's GNP per person, number of people and age, crowded cities and therefore spectrum, with these factors compared with the UK where there are half as many people and they have half the GNP per person, less inclination to electronic gadgets, and less crowded cities and 3G bids now total about $36bn. Okay, maybe the value of 3G spectrum in Japan will only be $130bn, but it's still a wad of cash to be given to three or four companies. There will NOT be any savings to subscribers by giving it away - the service providers will, as always, sell for what the market will bear. People mistakenly think that pricing works on a cost plus basis. It does when resources are unlimited and competition is open and easy to enter. In those cases, if you charge more, the competition undercuts you. When spectrum is in short supply, minutes or megabytes will sell at a price to balance supply and demand. Japan can't make those minutes cheaper by giving away the spectrum. This fourth application is going to really throw a spanner in the works as you say! This will be fun. Mqurice

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (9074)	4/24/2000 10:07:00 AM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 13582

Long ago, I read how the Japanese Gov't protects its domestic rice farmers from imports. The process was to "find" that the imported rice was somehow "inferior" to domestic rice. All hogwash, of course. The net results were that gaijin rice got excluded from the Japanese domestic market and Japanese consumers paid exorbitant prices for their "superior" domestic rice. The semantic games the Gov't played to justify its position were the stuff of Marx Bro's. comedy routines. There are many other examples of this kind of Japanese protectionism which trade negotiations with Japan have not seemed to ameliorate. Do not underestimate the Japanese Government's ability to rationalize the economically absurd. I have a lot of faith in Q management, particularly in its handling of international issues. However, I'd hate to see the Q use up its time, money and resources to play a rigged game.