To: Eric L who wrote (17175 ) 12/8/2001 3:44:36 PM From: Caxton Rhodes Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 34857 Eric- Guess you are afraid of the mighty 1x! No sandbagging necessary. We all know the scoop. Existing cdma networks and their upgrades slaughter GSM in performance and upgrade costs. Geez the GSM/TDMA carriers are going to upgrade to GPRS, then EDGE, the WCDMA? Ouch! GPRS looks ugly, doesn't seem to work, sucks capacity, and performs poorly compared to 1x. Yes, it is going to be very interesting watching the flavor of sub growth in the U.S. A easily tracked bet would be on the share price of cdma carriers v.s. GSM/TDMA carriers in the U.S. It's too bad they aren't all spun off so we could track performance. So how about a bet of PCS share price v.s. AWE? Both are ranked strong buys by most ANALysts. You say the growth rate for GSM will be grater than for cdma in the U.S. Can you count GSM handset sales in the U.S.? I'll take the bet for 2002 on that. I'll also take the original bet on U.S. GPRS handset sales v.s. 1X handset sales in 2002. With the current state of the world economy, it looks at though capital outlays for 1x overlays of GSM look bleak. Mainly because there are not cdma2000/GSM multi mode phones available, and when they are available, they likely won't be as cheap as low end GSM handsets. So exiting GSM carriers, and to some extent TDMA carriers, figure their only option is the cheapest option, GSM. However, those carriers do not see there being much demand in the data market, so it really doesn't matter that much if GPRS is a total flop. They aren't going to be launching edge(that still cracks me up) or WCDMA in the next five years. The battle for growth is in the low penetration greenfield makets. CDMA2000 is making big inroads in China, India, Indonesia. That is where I am focused for growth. The critical area for CDMA2000 growth right now is China. GSM has a giant head start there but the GSM crowd is afraid, and I am sure they will do everything they can to outpace cdma growth there. That is the market to watch for the next 5 years. As for Europe, cdma is outlawed, so I doubt you'll see much 1X. As for the big picture, both CDMA and GSM appear to be SLOW growing (as in sub adds) in penetrated areas. The big advantage CDMA has over GSM is capacity gains for 1X depolyment. So while the GSM guys are counting on the lure of GPRS to boost replacement handset sales (good luck!) the cdma carriers want 1X phones on the market for capacity reasons, and the subs that want higher data rates, will be motivated to move to 1X systems. Advantage cdma2000.One more bet, how about 1X handset sales v.s, GPRS handset sales everywhere in 2002? You got a huge base advantage. So any of the bolded bets you want to take? As for stakes, primo bottle of red works for me, or a share or two of Qualcomm. GSM is Toast! Just a matter of time before it goes the way of analog. Cax