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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lance Bredvold who wrote (1644)	1/3/2001 2:03:16 AM
From: axial	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi, Lance - That was some response! Thanks. Actually, my question was related more to the breathless tone of the ITU-boosting article that went with the question. That article saw the ITU as visionary, forward looking, and straining at the oars to accomodate progress. And indeed, for the last couple of years, I have been reading a string of articles claiming, in essence, that the ITU is re-inventing itself, to become faster and more responsive to the times. Then I read articles such as the one posted by Peter, or my upstream post from the Pulver Report - Message 15085369 - and it becomes pretty clear that there's a difference between what the ITU is saying, and what it's doing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WRT the CDMA/TDMA/GSM debate, I found your historical overview good reading - as was your insight into the motives of the writer(s) in any given article. I think (hope) that the members of the opposing camps have shouted themselves into silence. My reason for saying this is that I have come to be a non-believer in the whole question of telephony as a medium for delivering data. That is not to say that it won't find a limited place: I believe that it will. But the cost of achieving the capability will be ruinous, IMO, CDMA or GSM. Increasingly, I view it as an attempt by the telcos, faced with declining revenues and deregulation, to buy themselves a slice of the data market. Over the last year, my thinking has changed from: "People are going to want only one device, and that will be the phone" to "Those people who want wireless data (and Joe six-pack isn't one of them) will likely have a wireless ISP and another device besides the phone." In other words, I see market segregation. And my view of the present spectrum buys, and infrastructure buildout by the telcos is that ultimately it will be their demise. They will be unable to draw sufficient high-paying customers on that little device to recoup their investment. True, the increased capacity that it will give them will serve them well, but there's going to be a lot of wreckage before they are well-served. In that respect, the whole CDMA/TDMA/GSM debate becomes irrelevant, if my guess is correct. But, dipping my toes into that debate again, I've come to believe that for duplex data transport alone, some sort of TDMA is preferable. To me, over the long term, that may argue that the arrival of VOIP (necessarily accompanied by increased processing power, and a host of other improvements) would tip the balance in favor of TDMA - but only in the long term. I do not agree that CDMA is more spectrally efficient than TDMA. But CDMA does give some great benefits to operators. I do agree that CDMA, in the next 10 years at least, will be the technology to beat. Longer term, 4G, look for OFDM variants to predominate: they should be there in 3G, but the necessary DSP power didn't exist in usable, cost-effective forms at the time of 3G decisions. All that being said (and though my views differ from yours, 10 years ahead is too far to look) - your primary point was to watch the motives of the writers. On that, I couldn't agree more. Best regards, Jim