Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (13289)	7/3/2001 2:05:55 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 34857

i am confused. is this great news for QCOM or is it false great news? is this a great opportunity to sell QCOM calls?

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (13289)	7/3/2001 2:20:25 PM
From: S100	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Generation Out of Date 7/3/2001 IMAGINE A SCENARIO with scary implications for third generation (3G) mobile-telephone operators. Handsets have shrunk to the size of a coin, cost less than HK$200 and are sunk into every home appliance. They communicate using a standard language across unlicensed and free radio spectrum. As a result, printers, cars, personal computers and refrigerators become "peer-to-peer" networked devices linking users to the core fibre-based broadband Internet. Standing in a supermarket queue your Bluetooth enabled mobile phone automatically makes contact with the digital device of the person in front. She is on line courtesy of the wireless local area network (LAN) link provided free by the store. You piggy-back her connection and log in to your office intranet, check e-mails, and then make a long-distance Internet-based voice call courtesy of the store's own PABX system. Your phone was set up for 3G use but you did not use it. You paid nothing for the in-store communication but left with two large bags of groceries. Welcome to the new economics of the wireless Internet. Itinerant business travellers at airport lounges and hotels have been early adopters of wireless LAN Internet services. Many firms already use such technology to run in-house wireless networks, but it is the promise of mass market take-up that excites Paul Berriman, who heads technology consultancy firm Arthur D Little's global-networks practice. "In the future there will be multiple access methods to the same IP [Internet protocol] core" he said. "Just as there will be no single owner of the Internet, the same will apply to access to the Internet for all voice, data and multi-media content. Revenues will come exclusively from e-commerce and m-commerce." The disruptive technology driving this upheaval is a wireless LAN standard, called 802.11b. It is a computer-industry solution to short- distance data communication that in a matter of months has reached critical mass. It offers faster data transfer speeds over greater distances than devices using the rival (many argue complementary) Bluetooth technology but consumes more power and requires more expensive microchips. Personal-computer makers such as IBM, Dell, Compaq and Toshiba are shipping notebooks with the necessary 802.11 LAN cards pre-bundled. Equipment makers such as Cisco Systems and Lucent Technologies have reached broad agreement on network industry standards. Most importantly it operates in unlicenced high-frequency spectrum where the only congestion is from microwave ovens. Enter a "hot spot" that is wired to allow 802.11b access and multiple-users can achieve download speeds of up to 11 megabits a second, a figure far in excess of the speeds promised by 3G. The service is aimed at people working on the move and wanting to access the Internet on a laptop or Palm-type digital assistant. For 3G operators, 802.11b threatens to render obsolete the business model they bet on at last summer's European spectrum auction. That is because it is a "bottom-up" technology being rolled out by firms with no plans to make money from it, according to Rohit Sobti, head of Asia-Pacific telecommunications research at Salomon Smith Barney. Citing a decision by Starbucks to introduce the service throughout its chain of coffee stores in the United States he asked: "Why is Starbucks doing this? Surely not because Starbucks wants to enter the telecoms business. The idea is to encourage customers to spend more time at the cafe and drink more coffee." The implication for the evolution of the wireless industry was huge, he argued. "802.11 could end up taking the value of wireless data away from the telcos [telecommunications firms] and fragmenting it. The value of the wireless data business will be embedded deep inside the traditional businesses and not the telcos." In Hong Kong, the roll- out of 802.11b hot-spots has been slow. Pacific Century CyberWorks is running the service for Cathay Pacific in its airport business-class lounge and there are plans to extend the service throughout the airport passenger terminal. CyberWorks plans similar coverage at the convention centre and is expecting to cover leading hotels in Hong Kong. Pacific Coffee said it had considered introducing the service to its stores. Among property developers, Sun Hung Kai Properties offers wireless Internet access using 802.11b to all residents at its upscale 127 Repulse Bay Road and Royal Peninsular developments. Swire Properties said it was still assessing the technology. An imminent revolution where users can access the wireless Internet from multiple access points might seem fanciful. Carl Lam, CyberWorks assistant vice-president for business e-solutions, was bullish on 802.11b prospects but reckoned it would be confined to business users. "3G coverage will be better and the consumer applications are not there to generate mass take-up at the retail level." CyberWorks is betting on a small niche business with semi-mobile business travellers. It charges HK$40 an hour for wireless access, HK$80 for any 24-hour period or a HK$500 monthly charge plus HK$8 for each 24 hours of use. The message from mobile companies, committed to building expensive 3G infrastructure is the same. Asked what threat 802.11 services posed to Hutchison Whampoa's 3G ambitions in Europe, group managing director Canning Fok Kin-ning said: "It is a different thing. [There is] no point debating it. It is not there. It is different in value terms." Yet, according to Mr Berriman, mobile operators have woken up to the threat 802.11b poses. Many were figuring out how they could package high-speed wireless LAN access with their 3G services, which continue to suffer problems in technical trials and have seen launch dates pushed back and data-transfer rates revised down. This fits in with his industry end-game scenario where 3G and wireless LAN were simply competing access technologies to the core Internet backbone. The inexorable decline in costs of wireless LAN network equipment and ethernet cards in devices meant the prices of service provision would tend toward zero. Such an outcome is unproven and users, for the present, will pay for access to a rapidly growing network of 802.11b-powered hot-spots managed by Internet service providers (ISPs). I-Pass, which offers a global roaming service for narrow band dial-up Internet users through agreements with more than 800 ISPs, is building a similar 802.11- based network on a platform built by Cisco Systems. According to Joseph Lee, a manager for Cisco's commercial lines of business, the semi-mobile wireless market was being driven by the individuals wanting access to their office intranet from a secure location. "The killer application is VPN [virtual private network] access to the Internet. That means broadband access to do work, access the office intranet and upload and download. They are not going to work all day from the coffee shop but want to check in while having coffee," he says. The key to establishing critical mass is for service providers to form roaming agreements and common billing systems. Indicating how fast the market was growing, he said, United States wireless LAN operators were generating 50 per cent of their global roaming revenue in the region. Cisco wants to build and manage the centralised infrastructure of a global network of LANs. Mr Lee said he expected the business to be driven by traditional telecoms firms rather than property firms and retail outlets. That would probably mean rapid standardisation, simple billing systems and potentially faster take-up. It would also concentrate market power in the hands of large Internet service providers and telephone network operators. It costs HK$2,800 to wire a home for multiple-line 802.11b wireless LAN use. The cost of building a simple network for a restaurant, cafe or shopping mall is not much higher and falling fast. The price of connecting to the wireless Internet could yet fall toward zero. If so, pity the 3G operators and their search for a viable business model. South China Morning Post (C) 2001 South China Morning Post. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved mformobile.com

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (13289)	7/3/2001 2:32:52 PM
From: Uncle Frank	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Ilmarinen, we can parse it any way we want, but we would most likely be guilty of flavoring our interpretations based on our long term positions. Mr. Market could care less about the opinions of partisans of any stripe. Perhaps we should just step back and see how the street interprets the new arrangement. thestreet.com uf

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (13289)	7/3/2001 2:36:30 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

You are mis-interpreting the language, probably purposefully. Naturally, there is payment for infra, it is simply at a different rate than for subscriber equipment. This is nothing new. Infra and sub equipment rates are different. The announcement clearly states that the license is royalty bearing for both subscriber equipment and infra. True, the semantics talk about an expansion of the previous license, and it is at the same rate, but this is simply another aspect of the face-saving to Nokia. It is incomprehensible that you misunderstand this simple point. I know, it hurts. Perhaps you should read it in Finnish. The previous CDMAOne handset license is at "usual and customary" rates, i.e., no discount to Nokia like the one MOT enjoys. Now Nokia will pay "usual and customary" for its 3G subscriber equipment. In other words, Nokia waited too long, put itself over the Spinco barrel because it desperately needed the infra license in order to commercialize 3G, and lost the ability to demand a lower, volume-driven, royalty rate for 3G sub equipment. Plus, it gave away all the GSM IPR Spinco will need to get into the multi-mode chip business, and it gave it away completely gratis. It can validly be said that Nokia seeded Spinco instead of Q. You may recall that Q's plan was to assign sufficient CDMA IPR to Spinco so as to allow it to trade for whatever GSM IPR it needed to make multi-mode chips. Thanks to Nokia's munificence, Q gets to keep the CDMA IPR with which it planned to seed Spinco, making QClassic an even more formidable IPR house. All thanks to our new-found Finnish friends. Nokia seems to have given up whatever leverage it had to demand volume 3G discounts, and gave away its IPR for nothing. This, in my opinion, all related to Spinco gambit and Nokia's desperate need for infra IPR. Nokia benefits as well, naturally. It doesn't have the cloud of litigation over it. The Q will also presumably assist in Nokia's CDMA endeavors. From a financial and negotiating standpoint, Q is clearly the winner. However, Illmarinen, telecom's Gen. Custer, signals a victory for Nokia.