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

To: kech who wrote (18596)	1/29/2002 6:46:48 PM
From: pyslent	Respond to of 196654

"At prices like these it is better just to keep the 14.4 data access speed on Sprint which is no upfront charge and just normal minutes." There is the $5/mo flat fee (its not $10 anymore) to enable wireless web. But you bring up a good point... Once Sprint unleashes 1X, I wonder if we will have the option to stay on the old circuit switched data plan for $5/mo if it is "good enough." I use WAP now on sprint to check my yahoo email, and 2G speeds are fine for that; I don't think i could rationalize spending $30/mo to be able to check email half a second faster <g>. "I thought we would get pricing schemes that would be per meg or lower price for data minutes with 1x. This $30 fee plus normal minutes is an increase over Sprint's $10 wireless web fee plus normal minutes." The pricing would not be particularly surprising to anyone currently using either verizon's or sprint's wireless web service... you pay an extra $20 a month over the current CDMAOne charge to activate wireless data, but you get 60 Kbps instead of 14.4 Kbps. From a user/customer standpoint, i can see the value proposition. As QCOM investors, we recognize that as long as one isn't transferring data continuously (streaming music, downloads, etc), the cost to the carrier per minute is much cheaper with the advent of packet data, so carriers could theoretically price the service more cheaply than the current service, if they chose to. But they wouldn't do that until competition necessitates it. For anyone who is used to the current pricing structure where data draws from the same pool of minutes as voice, it's just a matter of justifying $20-25 per month to enable faster throughput. Is it worth it? i don't know. I haven't seen a lot of evidence that people are willing to pay the $5 a month charge. Incidentally, how does the "always on" aspect of 1X flow through to the end user? Would the end user even notice? Perhaps shorter connection times? We can currently connect to WAP sites on CDMAOne in ~5s. This is of course a dramatic improvement over other circuit-switched data connections that don't use QNC and typically negotiate a connection in ~ 20s (and they wonder why WAP failed to take off). Would 1X offer connection times even faster than QNC? "Instant on" is a VERY compelling feature (just look at palm pilots)...

To: kech who wrote (18596)	1/29/2002 7:10:06 PM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 196654

I attended a demonstration today by Verizon of their Express Network to a group of technologists within my company. I got there late, and missed some of the discussion, but what discussion I did hear, and all the data in their Powerpoint presentation is well known here. Some interesting notes: The rep explained that with 1x technology the total bandwidth is shared between voice and data, and that since voice has priority the data rate will vary. There was much discussion about the pricing, and the rep explained that this was a premium service and there was essentially no competition for it, implying but not saying that they could charge what they wanted. He did, however, concede that competition was coming and expected pricing to not only drop, but to drop significantly. His best guess was that it would take about a year for all-you-can-eat pricing. The $30 incremental fee for data was BEFORE discounting. Large companies will pay less but I am not free to discuss this. The demonstration went well, but I was conferencing in so did not actually see it. Based on the comments from others in the room, the performance was above expectations. The rep did a lot of raving here about how fast it was in normal operations and how stable the connections were. There were no signs of any problems in the demo which took place in a large office building in Manhattan. The rep also talked about future technology he saw but was Verizon was not yet ready to sell, the handing off of a connection, not just between cell towers but between 802.11b and 1x. He described having a laptop downloading a real-time video feed, leaving the building until he was out of range of the wireless Ethernet, and in 6-8 seconds having the 1x link, which had been standing by the whole time, pick up the connection and continue with the video feed. He was very animated about this, describing how mobility was on the increase and that smart companies will be installing 802.11b and seemlessly switching between it and cellular 1x when out of range. Not only will companies have better performance when on the Ethernet, but they will have cheaper overall mobil connectivity. His take: focus on the trend, focus on the fact that people are becoming increasingly mobile and that pricing is coming down and that this stuff will be everywhere and will be used by everyone for about everything. There's no doubt in my mind that Verizon gets it, or at the very least that this rep gets it, even if I quibble with their pricing model. I was not able to ask questions due to time constraints so I'm afraid that this is it for now. However, I do have the rep's name and number and will be glad to gather up a number of questions and see if I can get them answered. John