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

To: brian h who wrote (5765)	12/26/2000 4:33:25 PM
From: brian h	Respond to of 197001

Mobile & Wireless 3G Applications Are Coming by Jacqueline Emigh, Independent Journalist [ December 19, 2000 ] Q: I've heard a lot of talk about how third-generation mobile equipment is going to revolutionize everyday life with such features as videoconferencing, online sports and weather, and systems that can remotely boot up your dishwasher. These seem like amusing activities for individuals, but are they going to have any kind of impact on how businesses operate? - Fouad Murtaza A: Actually, until quite recently, many wireless technologies have had a lot more use in business and industry than in consumer applications. Businesses will be using mobile equipment over high-bandwidth third-generation (3G) wireless networks of the future -- the first signs of this are already apparent. Earlier wireless applications included many deployments in vertical markets such as public safety, warehouse distribution, field service and medicine. At first, the applications generally ran on laptop PCs. More recently, companies have started using Palm and Windows CE devices for mobile communications. Sometimes, the PDAs are specially outfitted for mobile use. They are available in ruggedized form factors or include barcode scanners from Symbol Technologies (stock: SBL), for example. Now, though, the industry is starting to hone in on even smaller mobile devices, such as smart phones. Some of the applications for consumers that you've mentioned don't require any higher bandwidth than is available on the 2G networks up and running in the United States. You can already obtain online sports and weather, for example, from your cell phone. In addition, Sprint (stock: PCS) and Verizon Wireless (stock: VZ) have each announced the availability of online brokerage services from TD Waterhouse via cell phone. Even Microsoft (stock: MSFT) and Palm (stock: PALM) are getting active in the smart-phone arena. You can access many of the latest wireless applications through different devices: smart phones, Palms, two-way pagers and regular voice calling. Everypath.com, one of the most successful wireless application service providers (ASPs) in the U.S., runs services, including eTrade online trading, Paytrust for online bill payment and the Travelbreak travel booking service, on some or all of these platforms. Business applications are also becoming available for cellular phones. TotalEyeSight.com, an ASP for ophthalmology offices, expects to go wireless next year. Mobile business applications already operated by Everypath include Salesforce.com and onProject.com. Right now, as you probably know, smart-phone applications are typified by a boring, text-based interface. To support more interesting applications, hardware makers will be offering bigger display screens and more memory in future devices, along with capabilities such as the global positioning system (GPS) for figuring out your location and serving up directions. On the software side, innovations are coming along in areas such as Java, for downloading pictures from the Web, and speech recognition, for communicating with applications via voice instead of the numeric keypad. You're right to suggest, though, that some people in the industry have been promising too much, too soon. Higher bandwidth 3G networks won't be ready in the U.S. for at least another few years. Even if these networks were available sooner, it wouldn't be feasible to show a full-length movie on a screen phone. Over the next couple of years, though, with the advent of "2.5G" networks such as EDGE and IXRTT, sending and displaying short video and animation clips on a handheld device might be possible. These clips could come in quite handy for businesses such as real estate or for viewing training videos in the field, for example.

To: brian h who wrote (5765)	12/26/2000 4:51:54 PM
From: gdichaz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197001

brian h: Richard Adhikari's article was published where? As anyone who makes any effort at all to keep up knows, this statement is not only false, it is absurd: "The other 3G choice is UMTS, also known as wideband CDMA. UMTS comes in two flavors: CDMA 2000, backed by QualComm, and W-CDMA, backed by the European handset manufacturers, which has been widely installed in Asia and Europe and is backwards compatible with EDGE and GPRS. " UMTS... and W-CDMA ....which has been widely installed in Asia and Europe -- past tense? The nonsense and lack of knowledge around is mind boggling. Where are the editors and do reporters give a damn for even a modicum of accuracy? (OK Ramsey, I know that comments on reporting are not mainstream here, but this is way out) Some of the article is interesting nevertheless and within it is some useful info. Thanks for that. Will it ever occur to any "reporter" that Qualcomm is key to WCDMA - and no repeat no WCDMA is in commercial use anywhere yet? Best. Chaz