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To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (109384)	12/8/2001 10:45:33 PM
From: John Biddle	Respond to of 152472

nobody with the money to buy a fancy phone uses these You've got to get more credible that that. Maybe in some small town people don't use mass transportation, but in large cities there are hundreds of thousands who do every day. Not all are poor, either. And we're not talking about a lot of money to buy a device that can receive data, so it's not going to be a service for the elite, but for the masses. this is kind of a curious argument. first you say there will be all these new must-have applications on devices that don't yet exist (on services that don't yet exist) for future cellphones; In large part the services are already there, on the internet. When the internet can be carried in one's pocket it will be even more useful and desirable than it is today. When developers know that the masses are buying, or think they'll be buying, such devices, additional apps focused on needs of people away from their home or office computers will be created. This will add more value to the web and raise usage. then you dismiss 802.11 because somebody went bankrupt providing a service TODAY, on devices people use TODAY, to access content and applications existing TODAY. Because they are not the same, and one makes sense to me and one doesn't. When attempting to predict the future I don't guarantee my results anymore than I suspect you will, but I'm more than willing to discuss my reasoning. Mobile devices offer incremental value to people for the things they can do that their existing equipment cannot. Based on some estimate each person makes about the value of the new capabilities to them against the costs and possible inconveniences, they either buy and use or they don't. 3G mobile data will be available everywhere the user goes, just like their cell service is available now. That maximizes the incremental value of the service, even if there are many times and many circumstances under which they will not be used. Portable TVs aren't watched while driving either but they are still sold. 802.11b is faster than 3G will be for the foreseeable future, and that is in its favor. Contrasted against the inconvenience of only being able to use it in certain places, I don't think people will find it a good trade off. If hundreds of thousands of locations are wired up for wireless ethernet, and customers could get access to them all with one small monthly bill (remember it has to compete with 3G) then it may indeed have a chance to do very well. Given that a strong run was made at it already and the number of participating locations was small, there were many competing services wherein the user would have to subscribe to all of them to have even a small number of usable locations, and the biggest and most well known of those services went bankrupt, then yes, I think they'll have a tough time beating out 3g. In CDMA at least, the data capability is nearly free to the operators since they gain valuable voice spectrum efficiency from their upgrade to 1X. This will allow them to keep data costs low, profits high. Data can be used to attract the most desirable customers, those that spend the most money. Services can be added as appropriate. Sure my belief that 3G will be successful (at least the reasonably priced CDMA based variants) is speculative. You on the other hand have actually seen your proposed system fail, and yet you persist in believing it to be a better bet than 3G. I think it is you who need to explain your logic. May the best ideas win.