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To: Mike Buckley who wrote (53980)	5/6/2003 10:11:14 AM
From: Jim Mullens	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

Mike, AT&T deception and your reply “My hunch is that there is no such definition and that that is by design, so it allows companies to make claims that can't be clearly refuted.” When I discussed this with AT&T Wireless IR sometime back, I documented my pointed questions with an AWE whitepaper which describes their evolution to 3G (WCDMA). If I recall correctly, they clearly stated in that paper that WCDMA is their “next generation” technology for 3G. When I pointed this out, the polite IR person replied that using “next generation” in the context of GSM/GPRS was “poorly worded”. It is deceptive to the unknowing consumer in that they are given the impression that the new phone that they are purchasing is the “next generation” or 3G which it is clearly not. They will have to upgrade once again when and if AWE rolls out WCDMA (sometime in 2004). It is deceptive to the unknowing investing public in that they may believe that AWE is currently deploying “next generation” or 3G which it is clearly not. Perhaps the SEC should have gone one step further and required that all company advertising and PR be signed off by the CEO as being truthful and not misleading. JMHO jim

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (53980)	5/6/2003 12:01:54 PM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Wireless "Next Generation Services" Mike, << I don't know if there is a clear definition of "next generation" for use in advertising, press releases and the like. >> The term "next generation services" is liberally used by wireless journalists to describe the always on packet data services (GPRS, EDGE, 1xRTT) currently or soon to be deployed to supplement lower speed data circuit switched data services. Usage of the term originated about the same time that Cahners In-Stat coined the term 2.75G at the end of 1999, to refer to EDGE and 1xRTT, neither of which meets the full complement of ITU IMT-2000 data transmission rate requirements for 3G services. The term "Next generation services" avoids the controversy of whether or not 1xRTT, which Qualcomm and CDG once called "an interim step to 3G", is a 2.5G data service as the Koreans and Chinese refer to it, or is a 3G service as Qualcomm, CDG. and Bock Communications, the PR firm CDG hired to promote it as such. I use the term for just that reason, and have done so for some time. "Next generation networks" in turn are evolved GSM MAP or ANSI-41 core networks that have been upgraded to support an IP backbone, IP bearers, that can use those backbones, and bearers that will support full fledged 3G infra components, that are forward compatible to all-IP with the addition of a mobile IP network subsystem that some inaccurately call "forklift" upgrades. "Next generation services" and "next generation networks", as a result of wireless journalists, financial analysts, and research houses, using the term liberally and frequently, have become common and accepted industry parlance. Herschel Shosteck, who was chartered by CDG to write a very unsuccessful "independent" FUD piece promoting a CDMA2000 migration path for IS-136 carriers followed up one year later with "The Next Generation Transition for TDMA Operators: Assessing The GSM and CDMA Options:" Message 18070624 AWS uses the term correctly and in accepted fashion when it describes its upgraded networks and the new mMode services which are virtually identical to PCS's Vision services, and virtually indistinguishable from those services from and end user subscriber perspective. This one year old article credits Samuel May of U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, with coining "the acronym 2.75G to describe a hardware upgrade to either a 2G code division multiple access (CDMA) 1xRTT network or global system for communications (GSM) enhanced data rates for global evolution (EDGE) network." 3g.co.uk Buried somewhere here on this thread is an article I clipped several years ago from a special section of Cahners "Wireless Week," that describes the real origin by In-Stat or the term 2.75G. I can't find it in the "Wireless Week" archives or my own, but will repost it if and when I turn it up. Essentially what it stated is that at about the time that the ITU Radio Experts Group approved 5 terrestrial 3G air interfaces in November 1999, CDG and Qualcomm reacted to the fact that the UWCC was able to have a 3G standard (IMT-SC or EDGE) approved as a 3G standard that clearly did not meet the ITU IMT-2000 requirements for 3G data services in a fixed environment (2 Mbps) or possibly even in a pedestrian environment (384 kbps) and basically said, hey, if their technology is 3G, then our "interim step to 3G" is 3G. Instant promotion, just like cdma2000 was promoted to CDMA2000, 1xRTT Release Zero (IS-95C) - which is NOT an IMT-2000 standard - became 3G, and the Hype began. It's all about Hype, another overused marketing tactic as widely used as FUD. Speaking of hype here is a link to Bock Communications, Inc's "Technology Standards Success Story" on behalf of CDG bockpr.com Caveat Emptor. - Eric -