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 : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: foundation who wrote (14592)	9/4/2001 9:15:07 AM
From: slacker711	Respond to of 196649

An interesting analysis of FOMA from Japan....I think Ben could have written it ;-). Tuesday, September 4, 2001 ANALYSIS: NTT DoCoMo Forced To Launch 3G Service Early TOKYO (Nikkei)--NTT DoCoMo Inc. (9437)'s launch of its FOMA third-generation mobile phone service on Oct. 1 will likely resemble a trial run. Not only will the service's target area be limited to the Tokyo metropolitan area, but also the emergence of new services, such as transmitting moving images, will not be ready in time for the launch. Nonetheless, NTT DoCoMo insisted on starting its commercial service in October, partly because it will lose face if it leaves the launch date any later and because it wants to get the jump on European carriers, which have also been delaying their launch. NTT DoCoMo plans to expand the service area to other major Japanese cities in spring 2002. But a service covering most of the population will not be in place until spring 2004. Moreover, the company will not offer music and video distribution services from Oct. 1, claiming that doing so would truncate connection times. NTT DoCoMo expects these functions to be available from around spring 2002. Mobile phones loaded with such functions as international roaming, which enables a user to operate the phone anywhere in the world and is supposed to be a main feature of the 3G service, and location information, which accurately displays the user's current location, will probably not appear until well into fiscal 2002. One problem is that the producers of Internet-compatible i-mode content, which helped drive NTT DoCoMo's impressive growth in digital mobile phone services, have not been active in providing 3G content, given the small number of users initially expected and the complex technology involved. The result is that even now, three months after the launch of its test service, there is still no unique FOMA content. But NTT DoCoMo is not impatient, at least not publicly. The company says it plans to roll out a series of new services. And with a 60% share of the market for existing digital mobile phones, the company hardly needs to rush. The company posted a record pretax profit in the fiscal year ending March 2001, and expects to top that again this year, with a profit of close to 800 billion yen. Therefore, the company sees 3G mobile telephony mainly as a future revenue source. Nonetheless, NTT DoCoMo is launching a commercial service in a bid to set the global 3G standard. Europe has seen a number of mobile phone carriers announce that they will delay the introduction of their 3G services. And even if a carrier does introduce a 3G service, it is unlikely to be compatible with that of NTT DoCoMo. Consequently, NTT DoCoMo had no choice but to announce as early as possible that it is commercializing its service. (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Tuesday morning edition) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: foundation who wrote (14592)	9/4/2001 9:17:08 AM
From: foundation	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 196649

Nokia says GPRS Handsets are on track 4 September 2001 From Simon Buckingham of Mobile Streams Following up from the news article we issued last week on the PBCCH issue, Nokia today announced an unprecendented press release that tried to reassure the market that the incumbent 2G terminals leader is still going to be a leading player in the 2.5G (GPRS) and 3G UMTS/ WCDMA world. Mobile Streams is highly skeptical about Nokia's future outlook but please find there comments below for you to form your own view: "Nokia confirms GPRS programs are on track, addresses technology outlook Matti Alahuhta, President, Nokia Mobile Phones, today in New York reiterates Nokia's intention to release its GPRS products according to its announced plan. The first units of the Nokia 8310 will become available in September, while the Nokia 6310 will start selling in the 4th quarter, and the Nokia 8390 at the end of 2001. "With the GPRS business system, our industry is moving to a new level of complexity, which means that careful attention has had to been paid to the smooth functioning of all elements of the entire system before the volume roll-out of terminals and services. This year we estimate the GPRS terminal market volume to be about 10 million units but expect its share of the GSM handset market to rise to over 50% in two years´ time. Our GPRS phone tests give us confidence that our products will perform to high expectations when they are released to the market. "A key element in the overall success of GPRS is the ability of multiple vendors to consistently test GPRS features between infrastructure and terminals in order to deploy interoperable products in the market. I am happy to say that all leading manufacturers are unanimous on the importance of moving GPRS forward as a joint effort, following a commonly agreed process of interoperability testing in relation to new features. This kind of broad industry consensus is essential for the successful rollout of the new mobile services. "GPRS technology is an important shift in our industry because of packet switching. For the consumer, this means being ´always connected´ to services. But the fundamental transformation in our industry comes through a combination of several additional evolving technologies. WAP/XHTML, Java and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) will all contribute to the creation of a new growth wave, which is rapidly approaching. Within 12 months Nokia will introduce a wide array of new mobile phones, including new product concepts, based on these technologies. "The expansion of personal messaging over MMS will follow the phenomenal success of SMS based transactions. According to external estimates, over 200 billion SMS messages will be transmitted in GSM networks this year. We will start delivering MMS in our products during the first half of next year. Our first dual-mode GSM/WCDMA 3rd Generation (3G) terminal will also be an MMS-enabled imaging phone. "As a natural evolution of the 2G and 2.5G technologies, 3G will further enhance the mass market proliferation of mobile services. For the consumer, this transition will be a seamless process, becoming visible in the rising quality of the services. Much of what we envisage of the 3G services and applications is already possible today with the Nokia 9210 Communicator, which we are delivering at full capacity. But similar features are rapidly cascading to several other product categories. For example, Web access is quickly becoming a standard feature in mobile phones: we estimate the market volume of browser phones to be over 200 million this year, while 90% of all phones sold in 2005 will be Web-enabled. "Our 3G product programs are proceeding very well. A couple of weeks ago we completed the world's first 3GPP Release 99 December 00 version standard compliant end-to-end WCDMA call in Finland, using our actual commercial terminal prototypes in GSM and WCDMA modes. We have now reached the target density in the chipset integration, allowing us to implement both GSM and WCDMA protocols into the same chipset. The following week we completed the first international WCDMA call between Finland and NTT DoCoMo's FOMA network in Japan. These steps give us the confidence to reiterate that the first Nokia 3G terminals will start shipping in the 3rd quarter, 2002 with volumes rising into the millions during the 4th quarter. As further evidence of Nokia's capabilities across all mobile technologies, we have today announced the successful completion of a CDMA2000 high-speed packet data call on a Nokia prototype handset powered by a Nokia CDMA chipset." mobilelifestreams.com ---------- What is interesting is that Mobilelifestreams is a rabidly GSM-centric publication... they rarely acknowledge the existence of cdma. mobilestreams.com "We are a research company specializing in "nonvoice" mobile data communications such as mobile messaging, SMS, WAP, GPRS, 3G, Location and the like." Nokia and NTT may empathize with one another. <g> How to save face...