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

To: LBstocks who wrote (10889)	5/27/2000 2:06:00 PM
From: D. Newberry	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

Hi everyone, I am long Q, and have been reading the posts here for some time. There are a number of misperceptions on the CDMA2000 vs. WCDMA debate, and I would like to address one of them here. Both standards were developed to address particular technical requirements. We ended up with different standards simply because GSM networks and CDMAone networks have different technical issues that must be addressed as they evolve to the ultimate 3G CDMA platform. WCDMA was optimized to operate closely with the GSM standard. CDMA2000 was optimized to evolve the CDMAone platform to 3G. These standards were developed to address legitimate technical issues. As such, be assured that GSM operators are going to evolve to WCDMA, because there are good technical reasons to do so. CDMAone operators will evolve to MC-CDMA because there are good technical reasons to do so for them as well. To do otherwise would be for perhaps political reasons, and that would result in substantial costs penalties to the wireless operators (always a wild card). Qualcomm gets equal royalties on either standard. So why should Q loyalist care which standard is used? Because CDMA2000 is available now. This is a pure CDMA evolution that provides a consistent royalty stream to the Q now, and it provides that stream consistently through 2G and on into full 3G deployment. WCDMA is the third step in the 3G evolution for GSM. That means that GSM operators will deploy GPRS and EDGE before finally moving to WCDMA. So, even though the Q gets the same royalty stream from either 3G CDMA standard, the WCDMA royalty stream to the Q will be delayed until GPRS and EDGE have been deployed, their respective capacities exhausted, and the operators finally (and with great expense) get to the WCDMA holy land. From the countless hours I have spent researching this technology it seems apparent to me that GPRS and EDGE have serious capacity issues compared to CDMA 3G. If you assume, as I do, that 3G services are going to experience explosive growth, then I would suggest that GPRS/EDGE deployments will become saturated in short order. These operators will then be forced to turn around and deploy WCDMA sooner rather than later. I really believe that consumer adoption of 3G is going to be far greater than anyone has predicted. That, IMO, is a key issue you need to decide for yourself as you evaluate your Q investment. We are already hooked on cell phones. We are already hooked on the internet. 3G combines the two together. If consumer adoption is a big as I think it will be, then operators will require the most efficient transmission protocol available to meet the market demand. An excellent IEEE technical white paper on CDMA2000 vs WCDMA can be found at; comsoc.org It is dated (1998), but a great fundamental discussion on the two protocols. This paper explains the technical reasons why two standards were developed (as opposed to some sinister Finnish plot to take over the world <g>). Regards, DN

To: LBstocks who wrote (10889)	5/27/2000 3:06:00 PM
From: Boplicity	Respond to of 13582

re: Who's right? It's impossible to know right now, but Qualcomm sure has come down in valuation. It is currently trading at 46 times its projected fiscal 2001 earnings. And that's not far from its estimated three- to five-year growth rate of around 37%. Count on plenty of volatility and uncertainty from here. But let's face it, Qualcomm is at least starting to look pretty cheap. Perfect, I love seeing that, and it's about time and that is why I bought Friday, although mid 50's would be better. All the bad news seems to be out now, and the point should be driven home that no one in their right mind should of included China in their earning forecast and that we at a good level on 2G revenues alone not to mention that YES QCOM will be getting a big piece of the 3G pie no mater what flavor it is. Greg