To: JMD who wrote (6045 ) 12/9/1997 4:19:00 PM From: Asterisk Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 152472
One of the realities in the past for phone companies is that they under charged for residential service and made up the difference in business accounts. Now with everyone having a chance to get into the local loop business the new guys are aiming at the business customer and not the residential (of course, that is where the money was). I remember an article a while back when I lived in Seattle saying that the telephone company had submitted a request to the utilities board asking for permission to raise residential rates by something like 25-50% (sorry but I don't remember the exact source). Of course the utilities board rejected the proposal but if that indicates the differential that they have to make up then the new competetion could make WLL a real competitor in the local loop arena. As far as WCDMA, that is still a limited market, for now. Not everyone needs the high speed data capabilities that WCDMA allows. Many people on this thread seem to be fearful that WCDMA will displace IS95, that is not necessarily true. Places where IS95 are perfect (like in Lagos, the newest contract announced for QCOM) are not a great fit for WCDMA. They need basic connectivity, not the advanced high speed data and other stuff that WCDMA offers. So if a Honda works why buy a Cadillac? Also someone else made a good point, NTT has agreed in the past that their widerband system will be backwards compatable with IS-95. Another factor is that the Japaneese (sp?) MPT (like the US FCC) has made a HUGE point of saying that they do not want to establish standards that will only apply to a narrow market (like Japan only). Remember that Japan established stuff like the PHS (Personal Handyphone System) that did not do well anywhere except for Japan. Japan has learned its lesson about establishing stand alone standards. Mike: You asked a while ago what multistreaming was. I believe that it is allowing multiple "programs" to come across on the same channel. A practical application of something like that is in digital television where one bradcaster could put up multiple "programs" at the same time. For instance NBC covers all of the AFC football games every sunday (like 10?). If you didn't want to watch the one that was on the local station you would change your decoder and you may be able to pick up one of the other ones without changing channels. It is like CDMA in many ways, all of the information is out there at the same time on the same channel and you need the correct code to put the right information together for the program that you wanted. Hope this helps, and as always if I am missing the point or if my information is incorrect, please show me the error of my ways.