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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: S100 who wrote (2451)	12/28/2000 1:36:17 PM
From: S100	Respond to of 12231

Tower of Babel, part one. Does globalization. Have to mean uniformity? A Big Mac is a Big Mac from Bangkok, Thailand, to Bangor, Maine, They look, drip, smell, weigh and taste the same But should cell phones and other wireless devices be built to identical. standards? For all those gadgets to talk t each other, logic says build them alike. Have them use the same frequencies and the same software. Standards must be set. But it's a 1ittle late for that, experts say. The wireless world was fractured from birth. History, politics and a clash of cultures set the U.S. 'and Europe on divergent courses: Wireless is now a smorgasbord of standards. In Europe, Global System for Mobile Communications, or GSM, rule: GSM started out as French Groupe Speciale Mobile. Now, 85 countries use GSM. Most of Asia is in Europe's camp But South Korea has opened the door to Code Division Multiple Access, of CDMA. China may give CDMA part of its market, but not exclusivity. Japan has its own way of doing things. It uses Personal Digital Cellular. And only Japan uses it. Another local technology is I-mode for wireless Internet access. An AT&T deal with NTT DoCoMo will bring I-mode to the U.S U.S. Has Standard Stew South America uses Time Division Multiple Access, or TDMA, for wireless networks. The U.S. has lots of TDMA, some CDMA and a bit of GSM. But experts cite Europe as an example of a seamless wireless network. It works across borders and cuts through language barriers. "In Europe now, the voice quality is fine, the coverage is excellent. But roaming is the key," says Dean Siraides, director of product management for Motorola. "If you're from the U.K. and you go to France an someone calls you from Italy, your phone rings."