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

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (20611)	3/21/2002 6:05:37 PM
From: Dennis Roth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 196634

Help finance WCDMA roll-out with EDGE 3gnewsroom.com date: March 21, 2002 Operators will make money instantly if they add EDGE onto their existing GPRS networks and increase their capacity and number of users. This money can then be used to help finance expensive WCDMA roll-outs. "It comes down to more users and more money for the operators," says Torsten Hunte, Ericsson's Strategic Product Manager, "And the extra income can be used for anything of course, but it would be useful to help a WCDMA roll-out." A year ago there was a big question mark over whether EDGE would ever take off. It was a classic chicken and egg scenario with European operators saying there wouldn't be any terminals, while terminal manufacturers felt the operators were not interested so they didn't push the development of EDGE enabled sets. The turning point came in the US where operators are now going for EDGE and vendors can't deliver EDGE enabled handsets to the US that won't work in Europe. "AT&T and Cingular are demanding the handsets that have European frequencies so manufacturers are rushing to meet the demand." The problem now is how to position EDGE: in the US EDGE is seen as 3G, in Europe it is seen as an add-on to GPRS and operators, faced with huge costs for rolling out WCDMA don't see why they should bother with EDGE. The answer is instant income in the short term. Operators need to upgrade their GSM networks to meet capacity demands and it is simple and not very expensive to install EDGE transceivers at the same time. Then they can 'go EDGE' as soon as the handsets are available. The market to aim for is not the small pioneer/ business user segment but the mass market in the urban areas. EDGE will be available this year in the US and next year in Europe. Good value, attractive handsets will make users interested. The prime focus will be voice and SMS, but EDGE can offer speed and MMS and this will attract consumers. The money made from more consumers and increased usage goes to WCDMA. So EDGE will give users a taste of WCDMA possibilities at very little cost to the operators and then, in the longer term, it takes up its role as a complement to WCDMA serving the rural areas where it will be expensive to offer full WCDMA coverage for a sparse population. === My notes on the CTIA Educational Session on the GPRS/EDGE Migration Path show that Cingular and AT& T expect dual band 800/1900 EDGE handsets 4Q 2002. Triband 800/1800/1900 sets in 2003. EDGE handsets in volume in 2003. AT&T's Leo Nikkari said they have been promised Quad band EDGE handsets. Couldn't give a date for the Quads. Leo said a pecular thing in reponse to a question about possibility of EDGE - CDMA handsets. He said there could be no EDGE - CDMA convergence because there was no multi-band ability with CDMA, unlike GSM.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (20611)	3/23/2002 1:44:44 PM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 196634

Wireless Technology to Get Test in Area By Yuki Noguchi Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 20, 2002; Page E05 washingtonpost.com ORLANDO, March 19 -- Verizon Wireless and Lucent Technologies Inc. announced today that they will begin trying out a technology in Tysons Corner and Rockville next month that could offer businesses advanced wireless Internet connections close to the speeds available via cable modems or digital subscriber lines. The network will be capable of data transmission speeds up to 2.4 megabits per second -- about 100 times current wireless speeds. If successful, this third-generation, or 3G, technology may be installed throughout Verizon's network. But whether it will be successful is uncertain. The lack of capital to expand networks, spotty coverage even in areas where many people already use wireless connections, and transmissions that rarely get up to the advertised speeds are some of the roadblocks the industry faces. Yet every gadget maker and cell-phone carrier at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association's annual convention here talked of a future in which it will be possible to send home videos over a cell phone and enjoy a high-speed Internet connection from a laptop on a park bench. The industry has invested billions of dollars to offer customers a kind of superconnected existence, one that eventually will make it possible to buy a soft drink out of a vending machine with a swipe of one's cell phone. Lucent has spent the past 12 to 18 months researching wireless data and interviewing the chief technologists at Fortune 100 companies. That research showed that "3G is it," said Scott Erickson, senior vice president of marketing at Lucent's wireless division. That kind of 3G enthusiasm is everywhere: Companies such as Sony Ericsson, a joint venture between the Japanese and Swedish giants, are displaying tiny phones that have built-in video cameras, and Compaq Computer Corp. has an array of phones with larger screens that make them function more like small computers. But there is one big problem: Cell-phone providers aren't up to speed. Still, the vast majority of people use their cell phones to talk, not to e-mail or surf the Web. More importantly, wireless data services so far generate only a tiny fraction -- 2 percent to 5 percent -- of cell-phone carriers' revenue, according to executives at those firms. Even though those companies all envision a brave new world in which wireless phones transform every commercial and personal transaction, it is not clear what kind of services people will be willing to pay for. The carriers "are spending billions to build [3G] out at the same time that they are getting pressure to push prices down, even to a flat rate," said Eddie Hold, an analyst with Current Analysis Inc., a market-research firm in Sterling. If carriers cave in to that price pressure, they may have to write off all the money they have spent on that infrastructure, he said. People still use cell phones almost entirely to make calls, so the main benefit of high-speed technology is that it has made room on cell-phone networks for more calls, Hold said. That sentiment was echoed by the cell-phone executives, who seem to be justifying the billions of dollars spent on upgrading their networks by talking about their advantages for voice services, not the much-touted wireless data. Sprint PCS has budgeted "$1.5 billion for its high-speed upgrades, and we've doubled our network capacity," which has been important to the company because its subscribers are using their cell phones more and more every month, said Chuck Levine, Sprint's president. "If we never got a data user, it will still be a good investment," he said. Barry West, chief technology officer for Nextel Communications Inc. in Reston, said data revenue accounts for less than 5 percent of revenue at Nextel, a company that is spending a lot of time and marketing dollars on developing data applications that its corporate customers can use to do business off-site. "The main benefit for 3G is the importance for voice capacity," he said. 2002 The Washington Post Company ====== Hmmm. Tysons Corner and Rockville, too far away for me to try it.