Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: q1000 who wrote (32512)	2/18/2003 5:43:30 PM
From: foundation	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 197351

q1000 - Here's a last shot at the "Slide 28 – GSM1x with WCDMA" mystery strategy... "This is a new slide which shows how GSM1x could work with WCDMA. WCDMA would be used in the major cities, using the 3G spectrum. In the less populated areas, GSM voice would run on 2G spectrum. In the areas in between, GSM1x would offer 1x/1xEV-DO in 2G spectrum." ========== I have to make a number of assumptions to make any sense of Q expending energy on this concept: 1) Q is targeting Europe with this option. 2) In order to meet the terms of very expensive frequency licenses, carriers are committed to an initial superficial wCDMA build. This requires much less infrastructure than one might assume, as evidenced by the meager quantities of 3G infra installed for Euro carriers to date who are relatively close to, or claiming compliance. Also, coverage/capacity/performance - that is predicated on cell station density - can and will be paper thin... So some wCDMA infra will be a given in major urban areas in any eventuality. 3) The carriers are quite aware - and they must be - that the present wCDMA standard can not (and they may indeed be wondering if it ever could) provide economically competitive performance/capacity/coverage... and that prospects for revising entrenched vendors' IP are nil. 4) The Euro carriers have concluded that EDGEfantasies are not an option. Either EDGE is DOA in general (due to continued technical problems with handsets, greater required infra density, etc) or that Europe's old legacy GSM networks would require substantial new hardware and are too expensive to upgrade. In any event, EDGE is out. In this context, GSM1x in existing European spectrum begins to make some sense to me. Whatever the European carriers decide to do, their bankers are going to shit all over them, as the very expensive wCDMA dream is dramatically delayed, if not dead. Spend more money on dead-end 2G infrastructure? Build more unproven technology upgrades (expensive, requiring hardware, added cells? who knows?) from floundering vendors? If data services begin to take off in Europe, GPRS will soon be swamped. It's not a mid-term, much less a long term, solution. Spectrum /capacity is running dry. 3G GSM1x - in this context - begins to make sense. It's not like more dead end, throw-away GSM-centric investment. Bankers might well be happier with this prospect - not pissing $$ down a hole. It would provide needed capacity and performance. Services could be melded with wCDMA in future if it ever made sense... and if the tables turned (with, for instance, a cdma2000 China) all the infra would integrate with new at higher frequencies with no waste. If this is the case, what Q needs to do - instead of a dividend or buy back - is some Euro vendor financing.