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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (4910)	11/23/2000 4:34:35 PM
From: arun gera	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197005

Kyros: We don't know what pricing are we going to get. If 1xrt and HDR are implemented at low costs, competition will drive the price of the charges of download to a reasonable level. As for the ability and willingness to pay, remember, when AOL used to charge about $2/hr for access. the killer apps for AOL were chatrooms and Motley fool. And I knew people who used to run $70-100/month bills on AOL. Suppose you get 144 kbps at approximately $40/month on your cell phone and it is practically unlimited (similar to the $50 for 800 minute plans right now for voice, which are practically unlimited for me). Would you be interested in that option? Arun >>Young people love SMS because it's cheap. >>

To: KyrosL who wrote (4910)	11/23/2000 7:58:13 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197005

<They will not send pictures with their messages when they find out the price they have to pay to do so, especially when they compare the quality and price of those pictures to the quality and price they pay to send them on their home PC -- excellent quality, zero price. > Kyros, a little picture on a cellphone or Internet gadget would use not many bits. Say it was 1 megabit for a pretty good picture. The cost to send 1 megabit via HDR [1xEV] would be one second at HDR rates or a minute at 13 kbps rates in a normal cellphone. It's tempting to think of a minute as costing 10c, but the cost to the service provider is more like 1c a minute. So, would somebody send a picture for 1 cent? I think so. Yes, those figures are very approximate, and costs are falling constantly. In 3 years, it will be very cheap [a few cents] to send a megabyte. That is not a lot of disincentive to people. People won't walk across a room now to use a wired phone. They certainly won't wait until they get home to send a digital image. The attraction is the immediacy. The 3G spectrum in Europe was a bargain. I remember in 1996 and nearly everyone seemed to think NextWave Telecom had grossly overpaid for spectrum. I was trying to explain that they had got a bargain and that they were likely to fall on their face if they tried to get it cheaper by bankruptcy because it could very well sell on re-auction for a lot MORE than what they paid. And that shall come to pass. Now everyone understands that the spectrum was cheap. They are clamouring to get on the bandwagon. The spectrum is in limited supply and demand is huge. 3G will be a huge winner, even if NTT DoCoMo can't make it happen and is now making excuses and claiming the market isn't there anyway [which sounds a bit like the old sour grapes story]. We suspect people get in range of cellular rather than use a Globalstar phone, but we really don't know that do we. Well, we don't know how many people do that. The higher the price difference, the more they'll wait. But business callers won't want to wait too long to save $2 a minute; time is money. Mqurice

To: KyrosL who wrote (4910)	11/24/2000 9:23:58 AM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Respond to of 197005

"Otherwise, people will simply wait to get home before doing those high data rate downloads. Just like they wait to get into cell phone range to do their phoning, instead of using Globalstar." Kyros--your comment on G* explains why marketing the service to individuals has been unsuccessful, and conversely, why marketing the service to news reporters, emergency medical teams, and law enforcement officials makes more sense. The key feature here is availability of service, whenever and wherever it is required. Price is secondary. Having studied costs of dedicated communication systems, such as those used by a Sheriff's department in a rural county with hilly topography, I have found that G* is actually cheap compared to the prices paid to maintain a system of expensive two-way radios and ground based transmitters. G* is also more secure. Art Bechhoefer