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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: TobagoJack who wrote (8569)9/9/2001 11:51:33 AM
From: carranza2  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 74559
 
Agreed, valuation is of course the key.

Do not get the impression that 3G is going to happen in one fell swoop on a global basis. It [there is more than one flavor of 3G, but I'm using shorthand here] is a difficult, expensive technology whose advanced applications are not yet known to be money-makers. Many do not yet exist. Given this fact, valuating Q as a tollbooth is not something even the shrewdest pro can do with any precision. It simply requires judgements on things which are too far out into the future to properly quantify.

Given the cost of 3G, it is obvious that many of the legacy technologies post-3G (primarily CDMAOne, GSM, and TDMA) are going to continue to exist and be viable in many parts of the world where 3G may not take hold for a very long time. The 2.5G technologies which form a part of the migration scheme to 3G, primarily GPRS on which Q has no rights, may also continue to exist for a long time because WCDMA is looking like it will be more and more delayed, despite Nokia's claim that it will be here in 2002.

The key to valuating Q from a royalty standpoint is the rate and extent to which 3G CDMA, of whatever flavor, is implemented.

Being an optimist, I think that the delays are temporary and that 3G will be a reality in a significant way by 2003-2004. It will be viral by 2006-2007, and the royalties will then be substantial.

A rational investor would compare the opportunity costs of investing in Q now. That's a task I don't think can be done. The investment, however, is rational if one is willing to stick it out for 5-7 years, and perhaps longer. In that sense, it is one of the surest things around in this complex world. But I would caution that the degree of certainty is by no means high. In my view, it is simply higher than for other high-tech investments.