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

To: Clarksterh who wrote (26008)	8/23/2002 4:32:29 PM
From: kech	Respond to of 196668

Clark - Know of no technological reason why WCDMA will take three times as many towards as CDMA2000 in the same spectrum. A lot of the discussion of the problems of asynchronous handoff have stressed the need to have higher power to make the successful handoff. In order to have reasonable battery life one solution requires many more towers. This has basically been the approach taken by FOMA but it has the side effect of making WCDMA impractical in anything but Rural areas. Don't know if this is 2X more towers or 3x or only 1.5 times but I've often heard "many more towers" in conjunction with the asynchronous power problem. Tom

To: Clarksterh who wrote (26008)	8/23/2002 4:38:02 PM
From: puzzlecraft	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 196668

Seybold was saying 3 times the towers for WCDMA at 2.1-GHz while the GSM1X overlay would presumably be done at the lower frequencies GSM runs on. So, IMO, Seybold's commentary shouldn't be taken as a comparison of tower needs of WCDMA vs CDMA2000 at the same frequencies.

To: Clarksterh who wrote (26008)	8/23/2002 4:54:01 PM
From: foundation	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 196668

re: three times as many towers "Give the governments back their 2.1-GHz spectrum, tell them what they can do with it, and at the same time get them to relax their "GSM only" stance on the existing bands. Then add in a little magic: Take a block of the existing GSM/GPRS spectrum and overlay CDMA2000 1X." ========== Though to your point, I suspect Seybold is being conservative. There appears only one way (with present technology) to shrink asynchronous handset's search window to facilitate reliable handoff and minimize power drain - greater cell station density. But 3X? Likely not. <g>

To: Clarksterh who wrote (26008)	8/23/2002 9:08:18 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 196668

Clark, the 'three times' was comparing 2GHz with 900 MHz and W-CDMA with GSM1x, not the same spectrum. The spectrum difference about halves the cost [you'd know more accurately than I do, but for 800MHz it's more like a third, if I remember rightly for our planned network in NZ]. Then, there is [again, if I remember rightly], some penalty between W-CDMA and GSM1x with W-CDMA being not as good. So, maybe three times is more accurate than two times. Either way, it makes a LOT more sense to overlay the existing spectrum on existing sites than to start again in 2GHz. Going way back to the 1980s, the whole point of CDMA was to squeeze a lot more into the spectrum and doing it in the lower frequencies first is like taking oil out of Saudi Arabia before digging in nasty places like Prudhoe Bay and the North Sea - it makes economic if not political sense. Aligning politics with economics and reality is a better answer than paying way too much for something. With multimode, multiband radioOne handsets becoming available, giving roaming and backward compatibility, and squeezing a lot into the existing spectrum makes very good sense. Nokia is NOT in a good position. L M Ericsson, is perhaps better off. Samsung is best bet. Mqurice