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

To: Ruffian who wrote (9804)	5/8/2000 4:28:00 PM
From: Eric L	Respond to of 13582

Mike, << ETSI is still trying to keep Q out by mandating that at least one carrier in every country must deploy only the UMTS standard WCDMA--still trying to limit Q's potential....but at least they did allow all 3G standards including CDMA2000 in Europe >> On a related topic nd although the following article has a strong GSM bias, it is interesting nonetheless. I have also placed 2 consecutive posts (with less of a GSM bias) that attempt to define issues relative to spectrum allocation on the Nokia thread: Message 13633868 Message 13633934 >> BOTTOM LINE: WHY GSM DESERVES MORE GLOBAL SPECTRUM By David Molony CWI Online 06 March 2000 totaltele.com The European (and Asian) telecoms industry must this year claim the birthright of third-generation broadband mobile telecoms by challenging the United States' hegemony in global spectrum ownership. Only Europe has developed a truly universal standard for mobile telecoms. And it hurts the Americans to admit this. But two regional models of global mobile services are facing up to each other this spring, and the future of effective global telecoms depends on the European GSM-based model getting recognition for its superiority over the U.S. satellite-based model. When the two sides meet at the World Radiocommunications Conference in Istanbul in May, the Europeans (supported by Japan) will request a bigger share of what's left of the world's radio spectrum for 3G broadband mobile systems - sometimes called Universal Mobile Telecoms System (UMTS) or International Mobile Telecoms (IMT). And the U.S. government, with support from some U.S. operators, will try to stop them. Nobody involved will admit that is what is going to happen of course. They will say negotiating technical conditions of spectrum management is a complicated process. And in truth, it is not a simple matter of putting aside a chunk of waveband for the burgeoning new industry. Not all spectrum is suitable for fast data services, just as spectrum in very high frequency wavebands would be wasted carrying low data-rate voice signals. But make no mistake. The United States has had more than its share of spectrum allocated to projects that have failed to live up to expectations, and must be prepared this time to give others some room. Last month, however, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said 3G mobile standard should accommodate technologies other than the GSM-based UMTS system. Barshefsky wants to ensure that U.S. industry gets a cut of the market for equipment and services. She knows the U.S. industry is unable to provide global services - it has always been encouraged to provide competing technologies, never mind leaving the short-changed user with incompatible handsets and networks - but also that this is the big one, with potentially a billion end-users. Hand in hand with that, the United States has invested heavily in satellite systems for broadcast and data networking, and does not want that industry's growth prospects to be restricted. But the United States' business and technology lead in satellites resulted in the mistaken attempt to put global mobile personal communications services on the satellite platform. Iridium has stumbled already, with hardly any uptake by users. Teledesic, Globalstar and ICO have yet to launch. However, Microsoft, an early investor in Teledesic, is already hedging its bets by taking a stake in Israel's Gilat, which has been quietly using a relatively dated satellite technology for direct-to-home internetworking. Of course, it is easy to scoff at the U.S. effort to crash someone else's party. The European licensing system is obstructive and Europeans are not doing much to help global communications. Worthwhile U.S. systems such as Orbcomm, a low data-rate communications network for the transport industry, has to get licenses in 15 countries before it can offer pan-European services. But Europe's GSM system has proved itself far superior to U.S. systems, and it makes sense that 3G systems should be modeled on GSM. For the first time a global application - the Internet - will meet a global access technology, and crucially, with the prospect of a global standard in place. The WRC must ensure broadband mobile gets the spectrum it needs. ¸ EMAP Media 2000 << - Eric -