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To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (115968)	3/25/2002 9:18:06 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

even stranger that they thought they could bill CDMA as a high-end service. that idea was patently absurd to us bears many months ago. Absurd to some bulls as well.... i thought the Tero article was great--very objective and unbiased. it can hardly be called negative against Unicom I think it might have been a little more productive to wait one day and find out both what March's totals are and what Unicom's strategy going forward will be. Unicom releases earnings tomorrow.....and the CDMA network will be the prime matter for discussion. Slacker

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (115968)	3/25/2002 11:28:52 PM
From: Caxton Rhodes	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

MM, Come on, objective? You have to be kidding? The CDMA network is the fetus stage, Tero's rambling like its been up and running for years. The second is the sheer magnitude of China Unicom's fiasco in launching CDMA. Way, way, waaaaaaaay premature. So what possessed Unicom to mess with its winning strategy and launch a new digital network using CDMA? How about way more capacity, data, and profits for Chinese manufacturers? Well, at the current rate, it won't take the projected three years for Unicom to hit 50 million CDMA subscriptions. It will take more than 400 years. Yea right, Unicom is only going to add 9k subs a month in the future, give me a break. Never mind that the roaming is limited and the phones mostly have downmarket brands such as Haier. Never mind that high-income, urban professionals already have GSM phones. The strategy is to have the Chinese build the handsets for the CDMA network, not foreign entities. The Chinese want the profits from CDMA to go to the Chinese and not repeat the GSM scenario. Don't forget that Samsung was a "low end" company only a few years back. Now they are leaders in cell phones, TVs, Monitors etc. No newly launched Chinese phone manufacturer will be a Nokia or Samsung overnight. Unicom has made every mistake in the book by trying to launch a new digital standard in a market with 150 million users of a rival standard. The company now faces an excruciating choice: either slow down its runaway GSM success to feed the CDMA operation or cut its losses on the CDMA front. This is absurd, there is monstrous room for cell growth in China. Yea, this is the same mistake PCS and VZ made and now dominate the U.S. market in sub growth, subscribers, capacity, not to mention the nationwide launch of 1X this year. Sounds like Tero is whining again because Unicom went CDMA. Yea, the world would be a better place if GSM was required by law to be the only mobile standard. Sheesh! Caxton

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (115968)	3/26/2002 9:15:42 AM
From: DWB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Please... Tero is no more objective and unbiased than any other politician, only he's trying to sell his stance to the investing public, and not the voting public. In his GSM-centric world, anything that doesn't jive is ridiculed... and like I said, based on the same situation he described for CDMA in China, GSM never would have made it off the ground due to that awe-inspiring Analog system we had in place. Caxton did a great job of rebutting each of Tero's "unbiased" points. DWB

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (115968)	3/26/2002 10:03:35 AM
From: Keith Feral	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

GSM is not a winning strategy going forward. Maybe you have not heard of 3G CDMA - 1X(EV) and WCDMA. GSM & GPRS networks have to be integrated with UMTS networks over the next few years. Maybe Unicom would like to keep their options open for network planning into 3G which will include both 1X and WCDMA. 3G multi mode phones for GSM & GPRS have to be made compatible with 1X or WCDMA. Maybe Unicom realizes the futility of GSM & GPRS in 900/1800 MHZ spectrum and WCDMA in 2100 MHZ spectrum. Why not overlay GSM1X into the 900/1800 MHZ spectrum and keep the big GSM vendors out of the domestic market by devising a unique 3G standard? Additionally, they would save alot of money by not paying unnecessary costs for new spectrum. Unicom could halve their existing GSM infrastructure and do GSM1X at the 1800 MHZ level. Down the road, they could do WCDMA at the 800 MHZ level. Why leave all the unnecessary GSM air interface equipment which provides the least amount of capacity and data capability? You only need enough GSM coverage to maintain a defualt standard, just like analog today. In Korea, Japan, and the US, carriers will soon have CDMA1X/CDMA1XEV DO networks with almost very little analog. Why wouldn't Unicom want a 3G/3G network in existing spectrum like Korea, Japan, and the US. I think that GSM1X/WCDMA would be a great long term solution for a company like Unicom to replace their GSM/GSM air interface for 900/1800 MHZ. You and Tero can sit around and ridicule or deride companies like Unicom, or any company that uses CDMA for that matter. However, Unicom is not going to blow billions on new mobile spectrum when they can re-use their existing GSM spectrum for 3G upgrades. I think it is particularly stupid to introduce high tech into new spectrum without doing anything to improve the old spectrum. It is far better for the telecom companies to enforce their 3G mandate by requiring current users to upgrade to the new standards as they replace old equipment over time. Unicom is now in a position to leverage a dual mode 800 MHZ CDMA1X network with a GSM900 MHZ and GSM1800 MHZ system. They have only one of 2 choices for 3G. They can pay for more spectrum to build out a UMTS network. Alternatively, they can overlay the GSM900 MHZ RAN with a GSM1X RAN to offer 3G compatibility for their GSM network on a national level. The investment in the CDMA1X network would be greatly enhanced. The investment in existing spectrum would be protected. The investment in new infrastructure would cost far less. They would have an indigenous market for GSM, GSM1X, and 1X handsets. It would be a victory for the central planning process to encourage more high tech manufacturing for Chinese companies.