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To: Stock Farmer who wrote (129454)	6/2/2003 3:58:07 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

John, 30 million per year is the growth rate for worldwide CDMA subscribers for the past three years but that pace is picking up now. How many subscribers plonk down their money is what matters. I've been disappointed in the performance of CDMA versus GSM for a few years, but it continues to gain ground. If the GSM folks are looking at alternative solutions to bit transport protocols, which they are [and have even bid $100 billion just in Europe as preparation so we can be sure they are very serious], then their options are now WCDMA, CDMA2000, GSM1x. They can also start considering OFDM from Flarion and 802.11g as a city-centre solution in combo mode with wide area network solutions perhaps at a later date. While it's not a slam dunk that every wireless device on the planet will use CDMA by QUALCOMM, there's a good chance that several billion will. As 802.11b electronics and GSM electronics have shown, mass production makes for low unit costs. Low costs are important to subscribers when the cost of using the service adds up to significantly more than their hourly rate. When costs are so cheap that the cost is negligible, then subscribers emphasize coverage, quality, coolness .... Cyberphones and cellphones and services are still far from cheap enough to have their cost treated as trivial. CDMA is the way to drive costs down, while also providing the other things people want [coverage, speed, battery life and stuff]. With about a billion subscribers now of which about 170 million are CDMA users, we are talking big numbers and low unit costs. With China and India just getting revved up, there's lots more growth to go yet. Yes, they aren't rich, but they're gaining ground quickly and cyberphones aren't like buying a suv. By 2010, there will be a billion CDMA subscribers and many will have multiple devices. The same as people now have several tv sets, calculators on every desk and in every home and in many devices and all over the place - you are perhaps too young to remember the price of calculators when they first came out. People even have multiple cars. Of course this is crystal ball stuff so you are quite right that it's a matter of psychics rather than physics, but investors are stuck with predicting whether they like it or not. My guess is that 30 million per year will increase to 50 million per year in a couple of years as China and India and other countries continue to expand their CDMA2000 services. Then, as the GSM world switches on their WCDMA, GSM1x or CDMA2000 gains ground in competition where they meet head to head, such as in USA, New Zealand, South America and so on, that will increase to something like 70 million per year new CDMA subscribers. Don't forget the replacement of old devices and people owning multiple devices. Then there's BREW, Globalstar and other stuff too. While it's a cloudy crystal ball and not a slam dunk, investors don't have the luxury of enjoying slam dunks, double their money back guarantees and 20:20 crystal clear vision ahead to 2010. Mqurice