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To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (6516)	8/2/2001 11:17:51 PM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Respond to of 74559

That's more like it. :o)

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (6516)	8/3/2001 1:39:03 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Mucho, why on earth would China bother peeking at QUALCOMM technology if they don't plan on using it? They can't go on stealing if they are in the WTO and trying to run a modern economy. They'll have to remain a kind of criminal enclave if they do that and that is NOT the road to riches. It's a kind of cargo-cult mentality which is short term and very limited in value. The economic incentive to build 2G CDMA is spectrum shortage. If they are short of spectrum in Europe to the tune of $100 billion, they will be much more restricted in the seething mass of China. They can't squeeze 1 billion people into GSM. They need at least 1xRTT CDMA to do it. As you say, don't look backwards and expect the world to just trundle along the same track. There are disruptive, punctuated equilibrium situations and transitions which shift the old ways - it was you who just said that! China is leaping and bounding into the globalized 21st century with the internet at the core. Don't expect them to stay in the rice paddies! That's so last century. I won't bore people worried about the great financial collapse of 2001 with the intricacies of CDMA. So I'll leave your comments about CDMA although I disagree with them. However, I think you are right that Q! had the big fun in 1999 and now it's back to the grindstone and being 'just another company'. Still a very good company with great prospects. Many of the cusp companies will be like that. Battling along and suddenly they will be recognized as world-changing successes and the market capitalisation changes will be spectacular. There have been many examples and despite the sell-off, they are still huge successes [Nokia, IDEC and many others]. The point of this thread is the refuge to head for in mayhem. I say the cusp companies are the best bet - while priced in US$ [mostly] their incomes will depend on global sales and the relative position of currencies and other means of exchange or stores of value will be irrelevant. If the dollar is up, their price will be down, if the dollar is down, their price will be up. But because the future is the post-cusp companies, they will be up or even more up depending on whether the dollar is down or up. Selecting them is the very difficult trick. Globalstar was NOT one. Neither was Iridium. Neither were the dot.gones. But some dot.coms will succeed dramatically. That's my theory, Mq

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (6516)	8/14/2001 12:09:43 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 74559

hi Maurice, sorry for the delay in responding, but let me address some of your points... The economic incentive to build 2G CDMA is spectrum shortage. If they are short of spectrum in Europe to the tune of $100 billion now Maurice, as you well know, the 100BB is a ridiculous overpayment for 3G spectrum in Europe that has put the European carriers on the brink of bankruptcy. heck, the head of DT called the German auction "economic suicide". there is no economic justification there and it won't be repeated in China. from an economic perspective, they are much better building out their already huge GSM network as opposed to greenfielding a new technology with huge infrastructure redundancies. They need at least 1xRTT CDMA to do it. the Korean wall of silence is showing cracks: bwcs.com chosun.com the key point here being that 1x is not a simple upgrade. apparently operators in Korea have done extensive hardware add-ons - yet adding new 1x base stations equaling half of the old IS-95 base is not enough. SK has 4000 IS-95 stations and 2000 1x add-ons... and it's not enough. so much for that "cheap, software-based upgrade". no wonder Verizon is launching only in New Jersey. they can't afford to do a nationwide launch if the Korean example is any guidance. and they can't handle the PR backlash - VZ had the lowest sub growth yet again in 2Q, only 13% y-o-y. what defies belief here is that 1x models actually seem to terminate calls if they switch from 1x coverage to old IS-95 coverage. the phones apparently can't handle the transition. what this means in the North American context is pretty easy to visualize. covering states like California and Texas with 1x blanket is going to be pretty tough. Koreans have kept the lid on these issues. but Verizon is committed to launching this year. they're trying to minimize the damage by limiting the 1x launch to 100 square miles. it's incredible that VZ still hasn't announced a single 1x model. there are about 35 announced GPRS models with detailed specs. really, no matter how you slice it, the idea of CDMA competing with GSM in China sounds hopeless to me. check this out tca.or.jp it describes how J-Phone has nearly caught KDDI in mobile internet subscribers. back in April 2000, KDDI had 1.8 million mobile internet subs versus 1.0 from J-Phone. this means that the 80% mobile internet sub advantage KDDI's CDMA network had over J-Phone's PDC network has been all but wiped out during the intervening months. the Japanese CDMA network is a commercial flop when it comes to attracting mobile data customers - the very reason it was constructed in the first place. this mirrors the disastrous performance of the Australian CDMA networks versus Aussie GSM networks - and Israeli and Hong Kong show the precise same pattern. the conclusion: CDMA has lost head-to-head contests against TDMA-based networks in Japan, Australia, Israel and Hong Kong. expecting success in China contradicts directly the available data on the market dynamics.