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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric L who wrote (10107)	3/27/2001 8:51:42 AM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

re: GSM-800 >> Another Round Of Technology Wars By Peggy Albright March 26, 2001 Wireless Week In what may represent a new era for TDMA operators and possibly some new competition for the CDMA industry, Nokia last week unveiled a new GSM infrastructure solution for the 800 MHz band. The introduction of GSM 800 means operators can offer voice and other GSM services in cellular spectrum and use those frequencies and technology to evolve to EDGE and wideband-CDMA. Previously, GSM platforms existed only in the 1900 MHz band in the United States, and in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands in Europe and Asia. The absence of a platform for 800 MHz meant that many operators, such as TDMA giant AT&T Wireless Services, could not deploy GSM in their wealth of spectrum, even as they planned to migrate their systems to GSM, GPRS and EDGE. It also meant AWS's many affiliates and roaming partners, which built their businesses in close partnership with AWS, suffered the same limitation, as did Latin American TDMA operators that run TDMA services at 800 MHz. Standards bodies have completed standardization work for GSM and EDGE on 800 MHz, and other vendors, including Motorola, have said they will offer such solutions as well. Motorola says its Horizon GSM base station product is software upgradeable to GPRS and will be further upgradeable to EDGE over time with additional plug-in cards. As for Nokia, it began talking about marketing its solution last month in Europe. Its introduction of the technology during the CTIA Wireless 2001 trade show represented the product's official debut in the United States. The equipment will be commercially available later this year. Nokia would not say if AWS is a planned customer for the 800 MHz GSM product - the carrier also uses 1900 MHz spectrum for its digital services - but it stands to reason that AWS might someday incorporate the technology as it transforms itself to a GSM-based operator. Under an agreement between AWS and Nokia signed in November, Nokia agreed to deliver a GSM/GPRS/ EDGE/UMTS-ready base station radio solution as well as network planning and implementation services. But another consideration is the response of TDMA operators in the Americas. The CDMA Development Group is targeting TDMA operators with its evolutionary technologies, claiming that conversion to CDMA-based next-generation technologies, which already are designed to run on 800 MHz spectrum and which run on the same ANSI 41 network as TDMA, would be an easier conversion. "We see a lot of opportunity for TDMA operators to migrate to cdma2000," says Jim Takach, director of advanced programs at CDG. With Nokia's infrastructure solution, it's possible we'll see another technology war in the Americas. But this time 800 MHz TDMA operators will be in the middle of it. << - Eric -