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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Mullens who wrote (129862)	6/23/2003 12:37:56 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 152472

Jim, at 2c a megabyte [depending on what parameters were used to make up that number] QUALCOMM's technology is so cheap compared with the $4 a megabyte offered by Telecom New Zealand that producing megabytes for a tenth of the price won't make much difference to the retail price. In the same way, CDMA, although it's much more efficient than GSM in the spectrum, hasn't enjoyed a price advantage per minute, though the pressure is going on a bit more these days. I don't know what Flarion people are thinking. I suppose they think it'll be installed alongside CDMA on the same towers and provide the data links, [and maybe voice too if they can get that right], while CDMA will do the voice. Capacity is important and OFDM gives more capacity, so I suppose at some stage it'll develop a market presence. I'm assuming that Flarion won't make large inroads against CDMA, especially in the voice department. Flarion will get it's main business in lower density areas, while high density areas will use WiFi in OFDM form. Once it's down to picocells, which are necessary in densely populated areas, it loses its advantage against WiFi which already has the economies of scale, with devices already having WiFi built in at low marginal costs. It's a bit like base station superconductor filter technology though, Subject 2923 which has never really got going. Spectrum efficiency was improved, but the cost of doing so must have exceeded the savings. Flarion will improve spectrum efficiency in wide area networks, but the advantage might not justify the extra hardware and trouble. Just guessing, Mqurice