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To: MikeM54321 who wrote (252)	6/21/2000 9:36:00 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

Mike, Re: . And, as of today, mobile wireless data is still VERY confusing to me. Really, it's quite simple, imagine you are a Japanese teenage girl in six inch platform heels, a miniskirt and you are wandering about with an i-Mode phone drawing cartoons to share with your 120 best email friends. There it is in a nutshell, the reason we need mobile data networks, and why 9600 baud is still the gold standard. On a slightly more serious note, Andy Seybold, in his Outlook newsletter last fall predicted that it could well be that 2.5G rates would be good enough for quite a long while. While not a visionary thing to say, it struck me as being a very sensible migration from the present state of affairs. While the dreamers tell us about how wonderful 3G is going to be, they hardly ever mention that this is not an evolutionary step, that the new infrastructure that will be required cannot be paid for based on current utilization rates and that until there is some better interface created than the simple keypad on a cell phone, PCS or PDA, that folks are simply not going to find great utility in handhelds, Aether Networks TV ads notwithstanding. Then you have the newest hurdle that the industry created for itself in Great Britain. $35Billion in 3G licensing fees. To which each successful bidder is now going to have to add a completely new, and none too cheap plant to go with. I will predict that within a year we start to see some of these auction winners start to squirm (or is that 'blink'?) and declare bankruptcy, much as we have seen in the US when spectrum auctions got out of hand in the late '90's. If anyone can throw up any investing ideas, anything at all, please do. The i-Mode phone is the most successful consumer electronics product introduction in history. NTT DoCoMo - docomo-usa.org - has recently had to curtail phone sales in certain districts due to over-subscription. DoCoMo is spending billions of dollars, (trillions of yen), this year on R&D. If you want to see what the future of wireless data will look like, I'd pay a lot of attention to what they are coming up with. And then invest in their American imitators. <g> HTH, Ray PS. I wonder how much BT wants to charge me for that hyperlink? Will they be able to handle this with OAP&M or are they going to have to create a subsidiary to handle the royalty flow? And why the heck is it newsworthy on CNBC that some British teenager is turning 18? Royalties, grrrr... <vbg>

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (252)	6/22/2000 12:09:00 AM
From: ftth	Respond to of 46821

Hi Mike, definitely agree. In fact you could extend the same line of thought not just to copper, but to cable modem services. The early projections were for millions of subscribers by 1997--before they actually sat down and ran some numbers on upgrade costs and time to deploy. In all these cases--and I think it's safe to say 3G is no exception--the massive early hype for the concept will be hit with a cold shower once the complex and expensive infrastructure upgrades require funding, and once someone actually runs some numbers for the projected number of users vs. available bandwidth. Instat has a very good report that covers this very issue w/r/t/ 3G migration costs. Sorry I can't post it, but here's what's in it if your're interested and the pricetag doesn't scare you: instat.com The evolution of wireless communications systems from the second to the third generation will not have a singular, or easy solution. 3G service will be mandatory to sustain the greatest asset of the worldwide GSM network, the subscriber's ability to seamlessly roam throughout a multinational network. While 3G/UMTS offers a convergence roadmap, both migrating and new service providers will face significant implementation obstacles. This report provides overviews of 2G System and 3G Spectrum specifications, presents incumbent migration and new 3G provider options, discusses financial implications, including conversion cost estimates. A comprehensive subscriber forecast is also included. Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW JUST WHAT IS 3G? OVERVIEW OF 2G SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS ANALOG LEGACY SYSTEMS 6 AMPS DIGITAL LEGACY SYSTEMS CDMA GSM TDMA OVERVIEW OF 3G SPECTRUM SPECIFICATIONS WHY SHOULD AN INCUMBENT MIGRATE? WHICH ROAD TO FOLLOW? NEW 3G PROVIDER OPTIONS GSM/TDMA MERGER OPTIONS THE TIME TABLE THE ECONOMICS INCUMBENT OPTIONS GPRS EDGE NEW SERVICE PROVIDER OPTIONS THE FORECAST ACRONYMS USED IN THIS REPORT List of Tables Table 1: Digital System Specifications Table 2: 3G System Specifications Table 3: System Upgrade Cost Estimates Table 4: Worldwide Subscriber Forecast List of Figures Figure 1: The Evolution Path to 3G Figure 2: Wireless Infrastructure Figure 3: Relative Capacity Enhancement Cost Figure 4: Ericsson's Road Map for TDMA RF Capacity Increase Figure 5: Reuse Plan (N=7) Figure 6: ITU-2000 Harmonization Paths Figure 7: 2G Migration Paths Figure 8: 2G to 3G Road Map Figure 9: Deployment Option 1 Figure 10: Deployment Option 2 Figure 11: Deployment Option 3 Figure 12: GSM/TDMA Merge Path Figure 13: A Realistic Technology Availability Timetable Figure 14: Worldwide Subscriber Forecast