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

To: Eric L who wrote (10156)	3/28/2001 7:50:43 PM
From: mightylakers	Respond to of 34857

No fighting on Verizon's horizon yahoofin.cnet.com

To: Eric L who wrote (10156)	3/28/2001 10:31:44 PM
From: S100	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 34857

old news? snip Europe's leading manufacturers remain confident. Tapio Hedman of Nokia's mobile division says the company is on track to launch 3G handsets in the third quarter of 2002 and to be making them in millions by the end of the year: "The first handset we made was the size of a refrigerator. The current ones are much smaller. Development is proceeding and the technical challenges are being met in a planned manner." Arja Suominen, representing Nokia's infrastructure division, said deliveries of pilot commercial systems would start next quarter with volume deliveries in the second half of the year. Ron Garriques of Motorola, the third largest handset manufacturer, says the chips at the heart of the new phones are progressing well: "It was the first time we have had newly designed silicon work first time." snip snip Nevertheless, in the late 1990s, when standards for 3G were being agreed, the European authorities were determined to repeat the success of GSM. Rather than accepting a US CDMA, they opted for a home- grown version, wide-band or w-CDMA. DoCoMo, the largest Japanese operator, elected for a slightly different version. The possibility of a world phone using the same technology in every country has been, for the moment, lost. A key point, however, was that while GSM operates at frequencies of 900MHz and 1,800MHz, the European authorities insisted that w-CDMA ran at 2.1GHz. There are some technical advantages in using this region of the spectrum but most observers believe creating a unique European standard was a political move: "I believe this was a conscious effort to force operators to invest in a technology that would recreate the success of GSM and create a new export engine for Europe in the process," says one manufacturer. The decision to opt for w-CDMA offers economies of scale, especially if subscriber demand is high. Mike Short, in charge of standards at BT Wireless, says: "I have no doubt w-CDMA is the best route to follow." But choosing 2.1GHz has drawbacks. First, manufacturers had to start from scratch to design, build and test the system. Operators have been unable to use their existing GSM spectrum to introduce or test-market the new services. Second, new networks of base-stations will have to be built. This represents a huge investment on top of the colossal sums many operators have already paid for 3G licences. Many more base-stations are needed at 2.1GHz than at lower frequencies because the signal propagates poorly. Third, because there will be, to begin with, only islands of 3G in a sea of GSM, handsets will have to be able to operate seamlessly in both modes, switching spontaneously from 3G to GSM according to the area. These phones represent a significant technical challenge. The continent is on a knife edge. If the technology is delivered on time, Europe will maintain its leadership position. If not, the initiative will inevitably pass to the US which will become the source of the most advanced business and leisure applications for mobile phones, just as it is the source of the most advanced personal computer software. The many US mobile software companies that have invested in Europe because of its leadership in GSM will focus back on their homeland.