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

To: Jordan Levitt who wrote (8216)	3/6/2001 11:02:50 PM
From: Pierre	Respond to of 196654

Nokia: 3G Is History Repeating Itself RELATED SYMBOLS: (NOK) Mar. 06, 2001 (Wireless Today, Vol. 5, No. 41 via COMTEX) -- By Malcolm Spicer, mspicer@pbimedia.com IRVING, Texas - Nokia [NOK] President K.P. Wilska expects the wireless industry's migration to 3G to be much like its migration from analog to digital services - with different services as the end result, of course. Part of that migration, Wilska said, will be rolling out handsets that work on one 3G interface standard before developing phones capable of working with both of the standards. "I don't see the marketplace going there," he said during a 3G deployment outlook conference hosted by Nokia here last week. Wilska's comment came a day after Irwin Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm [QCOM], said makers of 3G phones would need to support both the W-CDMA and cdma2000 standards. Qualcomm developed the CDMA interface technology, which is the basis for both 3G-interface standards. W-CDMA is the standard existing GSM and TDMA networks will use to reach 3G capabilities and cdma2000 is the standard existing CDMA networks will use. Nokia develops W-CDMA handsets and infrastructure equipment. San Diego-based Qualcomm maintains it is entitled to receive royalties for all handsets built with either of the 3G technologies. While more than 50 W-CDMA handset vendors have agreed to pay royalties to Qualcomm, vendors including Alcatel [ALA] and Nokia have not agreed. Qualcomm's suggestion to make handsets with both W-CDMA and cdma2000 technologies isn't based on what consumers' needs, but on Qualcomm's preferences, Wilska said. "In each market and in each separate place, people may have a little different spin," he said. As for 3G migration, Wilska said wireless operators encountered plenty of pessimism when they began offering roaming services so customers could make calls outside their home networks. Critics said operators couldn't sell enough roaming coverage to justify investing in connecting calls between markets. "People said roaming will never happen in cellular," Wilska said. "Now, we know better." The same pessimism surfaced when wireless carriers began deploying digital systems after launching on analog networks. Critics warned of prohibitively high costs for digital networks and handsets, he said. "People said the migration won't happen at all," Wilska said. "They were all wrong." Similar criticism surfacing about 3G eventually will meet the same fate as doubts about digital deployments and roaming services, he added. "I believe the same thing is going to happen with 3G." Critics say 3G spectrum license costs are too high to enable offering affordable services to customers. Plus, there are doubts that 3G infrastructure equipment and handsets manufacturing won't meet carriers' plans for launching services. In addition, proponents of competing 3G interface standards - wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) and cdma2000 - can't seem to agree on when networks built with each of the standards will be ready. Although most major European carriers plan to begin providing service via W-CDMA next year, Jacobs last month said he W-CDMA-based services would be delayed until 2004 or 2005. The Bottom Line Don't look for the first generation of 3G phones to offer both W-CDMA and cdma200 coverage, Sylvia Panayi, the Strategis Group's chief analyst for the wireless handset market, told Wireless Today. Like the evolution of digital handsets, 3G handsets will evolve to multi-mode coverage, but won't feature it out of the gate. -0- Copyright Phillips Publishing, Inc. (Public Company & Wall Street & Business & High Tech)