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To: The Verve who wrote (6837)	8/3/2000 4:18:44 PM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 34857

You are basically betting that mobile operators are being run by morons. It's in some ways attractive theory that I have sometimes seriously considered. But in this case, your view seems to be that the telecommunications professionals who evaluated W-CDMA and cdma2000 did not see what is blindingly obvious to the Silicon Investor crowd - W-CDMA will fail and cdma2000 will triumph. So I'm a little wary about the "oh my God, they're morons!!" theory. Mostly because companies such as SK Telecom and Vodafone have actually seen the W-CDMA test networks and done a lot of research on the topic. Let me do my Clinton impersonation for you and define the term "easiest": that means easier than any alternative. Not easy per se. If you think that W-CDMA is a tough upgrade for GSM - how well do you think cdma2000 is designed to incorporate GPRS? Given that companies that developed cdma2000 have little or no GPRS expertise? You can't close your eyes and ignore the existence of GPRS. It will have to be incorporated into whatever 3G standard GSM operators pick. That's a fact. W-CDMA was designed all along to incorporate GPRS. W-CDMA will run on the existing GSM-GPRS backbone in most markets - of course Korea and Japan will be different. How do you prevent the 120 GPRS orders from turning into 120 W-CDMA orders? That's pretty darn tough. I hope that bimbette remark wasn't a symptom of some sort of anti-blonde bias. Don't go berating those girls about cdma2000 - that's not in their job description. Tero

To: The Verve who wrote (6837)	8/3/2000 4:40:22 PM
From: EJhonsa	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 34857

I hope that some day I'll be forgiven for making this post. I just feel that it's necessary. Anyway, here it goes. Verve, for GSM operators, cdma2000 is a more expensive choice, and it's not just about economies of scale. By chosing W-CDMA, the GSM operators get to keep their core networking infrastructure minus the base station slots. With cdma2000, they have to scrap absolutely everything. Likewise, TDMA operators have to scrap everything should they go with either 3G technology. However, EDGE does provide an upgrade path of sorts (obviously not as good of one), and will allow a level interoperability for TDMA networks with the rest of the world. With the possible exception of the South Korean decisions, this is all moving in a much more logical trend than it might at first appear. The CDMAone operators, aside from the South Koreans, are primarily going for cdma2000, the GSM operators are all going for W-CDMA, and AWE is heading for EDGE. As for all the W-CDMA = vaporware talk, there's been numerous documents of trials. That's all there is for cdma2000 as well. So in that sense, neither technology is more vaporware than the other. And aside from DoCoMo, which is pushing ahead with their "1999 version" due to the capacity problems they're facing on their PDC networks, the rollout dates for both technologies appear to be the same as well. In the interim, assuming that 1x delivers on its promises for major capcity gains, and that HDR's deployed by a number of these carriers, in markets with competing technologies, CDMA carriers could gain some decent market share by means of offering lower call prices and higher data rates (the latter's assuming that apps will be available to make use of the data rates). Still, I don't see what's going to stop GSM operators, and thus most of the world's subscribers, from eventually using W-CDMA. Eric PS - Just my two cents here: In spite of all the complaining that goes on from both sides regarding the other side being biased, the diversity of opinions that come out here probably makes this the best wireless-related message board on the net.