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To: axial who wrote (11457)	6/17/2001 6:42:48 PM
From: Rob S.	Respond to of 12823

Great post. I agree, nothing is certain until you start seeing results that define a trend. Extrapolating out several years based almost entirely on theory is very problematic. What has troubled me about some reports and articles, both pro and con, has been the apparent lack of technical grounding of the researchers. Many of these reports are not much more than a compilation of corporate propaganda. The degree of technical change has caused a lot of the forecasters to be very confused. One BIG THING that the analysts who forecast great things for LMDS apparently failed to comprehend was the dynamics of developing markets and the importance of establishing a technical and production base in the field of technology. They just don't get the bridge that needs to take place between the technical possibilities and the market opportunity. If you look at how the PC & server industry developed it is very simple to understand that it did not just spring up overnight. It would have been totally impossible to have decided upon a Windows type systems architecture 20 years ago and developed a team to build the technology and then offer it for a reasonable price. Maybe it could have been designed and developed as a "moon race" type government project at a cost of several billions but the product coming out of it would have been too costly to create a consumer market. Besides that, markets don't just crop up overnight; the basic demand for broadband is there but gaining wide acceptance for a particular offering is not. What is most encouraging about what we can currently see happening is the continued growth of WLANS despite the dampened IT economy. The WLAN sector is growing rapidly and nothing is likely to stand in the way of future growth. This is promising because it is being designed around W-OFDM technology and several IC vendors and IC CAD systems are supporting it with chip capabilities. I see nothing to get in the way of this support and manufacturing structure from being leveraged into low cost, highly capable FWBA offerings. LMDS did not work because it was based upon an instrumentation or industrial class infrastructure when a mass market consumer based infrastructure is needed to drive down costs. For investors who envision that the NEXT BIG THING is about to happen, I suggest that waiting for it to start is not such a bad thing. Several years ago I got very excite about Qualcom's CDMA technology and bought QCOM shortly after it went public. Then the company went through additional years of product development and evangelizing to the wireless industry before anything happened. I should have just put it on my "watch list" and bought it AFTER it started it's upward move and sales growth. I think the same can be said about Wi-Lan and other companies: if they are great companies then let them show you the proof with sales, contract agreements, etc. And let the stock start trending upward. If this "Tornado" is real then there will be plenty of time to see it coming before you need to step in it's path to get swept away.

To: axial who wrote (11457)	6/18/2001 12:30:27 AM
From: Peter Ecclesine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Jim, The point of 'the Tornado' label is when you can attach it to the market being discussed. When is '3G' in the Tornado? buying licenses, building base stations? handsets? 5% penetration of 2G markets? When did WAP exit 'the Tornado'? 'the Tornado' stage has a value when the stage beyond it hoves into view. It is misapplied when what follows is uncertain. petere

To: axial who wrote (11457)	6/18/2001 12:56:35 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Jim, Quite likely that is the best post I've ever read from your hand. You do, now, "get it". Thanks for stating the hard-edge view that retail investors must adopt unless they want to become some market makers lunch. :) -Ray [[ Aside: When confronted with a similarly optimistic view like Rob's that you responded to so politely, I have another acquaintance on the gold bug threads who was far less diplomatic. In replying to a pollyanna posturing, he point blank asked his correspondent if he were a sell side shill or a completely naive fool. Not that I'm making a suggestion here. But those are about the only two categories of human being that see hope in the present telecom debacle, as far as retail investing/speculating is concerned. And one of the posturings is utterly cynical. ]]