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Technology Stocks : Vodafone-Airtouch (NYSE: VOD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JMD who wrote (2832)	5/31/2000 10:17:00 AM
From: MrGreenJeans	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3175

Vodafone makes bid for Lebanon licence-officials BEIRUT, 31 May (Reuters) - Vodafone Airtouch Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: VOD.L), the world's largest cellphone firm, has approached the Lebanese government to become the country's third mobile phone operator, financiers and officials said on Wednesday They said the British-based company made an offer to pay $1.35-1.5 billion to the government for a 20-year licence. Vodafone officials in London declined to comment but the company said upon unveiling its results on Tuesday that it was aiming to expand in the Middle East. Cellis and LibanCell, Lebanon's two existing cellphone firms, offered the state $1.35 billion each for 20-year licences to replace existing concessions that the government threatened to cancel. Financiers are urging the government to accept the three offers, which would put around $4 billion into state coffers to reduce the $21 billion national debt. The cabinet is scheduled to discuss the offers late on Wednesday but no decision is expected. The government broke off talks with Cellis and LibanCell on a new licensing agreement last month and demanded they pay $300 million each and share more revenue with the state or face cancellation of their concessions. The government has alleged violations of their contracts, which the companies deny. France Telecom owns 69 percent of Cellis and Finland's Sonera owns 11 percent of LibanCell.

To: JMD who wrote (2832)	5/31/2000 4:11:00 PM
From: Jules Shear	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3175

Great to finally get some discussion going on this board!! JMD-no arguments from me on the theoretical superiority of CDMA technology whether for voice or data. I completely agree with your comments. But today, there is no packet CDMA service available by any carrier anywhere in the world while GPRS is already live on GSM. In addition with EDGE development, GSM speeds should be rapidly increased to be competitive with 2.5G CDMA technology. My point with VOD being a "GSM at heart" company has to do more with backward compatibility/roaming ease rather than data speeds. Clearly, VOD will be utilizing CDMA technology for 3G and the data benefits that the technology brings. I agree with you and think CDMA HDR is an awesome technology with great promise-problem is having to clear additional spectrum for dedicated HDR bandwidth and hardware/software upgrades at every cell/tower to accomodate HDR and HDR propagation is different than traditional cellular and thus carriers either have to build more cells (expensive) or limit their coverage to have some swiss cheese footprint. Too much capital expense and resource commitment required by carriers. My prediction is the technology may find a niche with some fixed wireless providers-but for mainstream mobile operators-most will just wait for compliance with the 3G data specifications for the increased speed or go with the IS-707 compliance on 2G cdmaOne networks which should be huge improvement on what's happening today. I think VOD's vision is to have the ability for consumers to use a single device anywhere in the world on both 2G/3G networks (preferrably VOD's network) which is much more simple with a GSM/3G device (Nokia and Ericsson are agressively developing) than having to develop some strange quad mode/quad band device (analog/cdmaOne/GSM/3G plus multiple frequency bands) which is really not technically feasible. Thus, the strategic rationale is to have a 2G GSM network 3G CDMA network. Especially if you factor in that >50% of the populations of Europe and US will have a 2G device when 3G is commercially available and will demand ubiquitous coverage as a pre-requisite for 3G services. This is why I think if your in VOD's position with already having >50 million subs (almost all on GSM) you're going to want a "simple" solution for VOD to take the scale and scope advantages of having a global footprint while simultaneously having 3G coverage (with high data speeds) in urban areas to fulfill the vision/economics/etc. of 3G. Obviously, this is JMO and why I have the speculation about VOD ultimately finding a way to move to GSM in the US (as well as the other political factors I mentioned in prior posts)