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To: Harvey Rosenkrantz who wrote (7801)	1/31/1998 12:54:00 PM
From: Raymond	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 152472

This thread is really interesting.When I started to stress the importance of the choice of the 3rd generation standard in Europe a couple of month ago nobody here could see any importance of it. Some hoped that the CDMA overlay trials at Vodaphone would result in big sale of infrastructure in Europe.I mentioned that there was an agreement by the operators and manufacturers that one standard would be chosen but nobody here believed me. In ETSI Vodaphone was one of the big supporters of the W-CDMA concept.Last week almost all the big GSM-operators in Asia also said that they supported this standard so any hope of a GSM overlay there is dead also. When it became clearer even here that there where to be a choice between 2 standards and none of them IS-95 in ETSI the second line of arguments came. Waporvare(Maurice),They will never agree,ETSI not important the market will decide (Ira Brosky on Frezza). The first argument about Waporvare is the most silly one.The argument was that there was just a panic reaction from Ericsson Nokia to stop QCOM.Operators like NTT-Docomo,Telia,Vodaphone Mannesman,Tele Italia was big supporters of this standard.The only company with the same competence in USA as this operators when it comes to cellular systems is ATT(Before the breakup anyway) NTT-Docomo of Japan has developed 3 different cellular standards themselves.The analogue system,PDC and PHS so they are maybe the most competent operator in the world. Telia of Sweden was maybe the operator that contributed most to the developement of GSM.They also developed the first big comercial cellular standard in the world, NMT. Vodaphone,Tele Italia and Mannesman are all huge cellular companys with a lot of competence. Do you really think that they would support WCDMA if they didn't know that it was a great concept.Some thought that it was just politics.Nokia and Ericsson had so much power in Europe so the could influence the vote.Siemens of Germany ,Alcatel and Matra(Nortel) of France,Italtel of Italy supported the other standard. Ericsson and Nokia is big in the GSM-world but they together are a much smaller company than Siemens.Sweden and Finland has 13 m people.Germany has 80.I can assure you that nordic companys when it come to politics has very litlle say in Europe compare to French,German and Italian companys. .Another line of thinking here was that it was just no working system("Show us the stuff").Of course they don't have any working system.They will start to specify it now. They have just agreed about the framework of the standard.Now it's up to ETSI to specify all the details together with NTT-Docomo and other inerested parties Someone here on this thread mentioned that it was possible to standardize a system that will not work.I agree about that but in this case it is just wishful thinking.Of course they have done experiments to see that the standard will work.The first experimental systems has already been sent to NTT. The second argument was the one I agreed with most("They will never agree").Now we know the fact .They agreed to support the Ericsson Nokia Waporvare. The third argument was that it's fundamentally wrong to standardize 1 system and not let the market decide like here in US.I haven't heard so many protests about all other thing that are standardized here and makes equipment cheaper(NTSC TV-standard Signalling between public switches, 110 v etc.). I think the underlying thing here is that people on this thread is afraid that Ericsson will take what it's rightfully QCOM:s.QCOM developed CDMA and that is it! QCOM didn't invented CDMA and in the CDMA systems here in US they have taken a lot from the GSM-system without saying they are sorry.I can just take an example,Short message service.They had the advantage to come after GSM so they took a lot of the experiences from that when they developed their systems.All digital systems are similar.They have different ways to transmitt the information but the rest is similar like the logical channel structure for example. Now when they will develop WCDMA they will of course see what mistakes they have done in the IS-95 standard and use that to develop a better system.10 years is a long time in this area.Of course IS-95 can do the same thing.But the problem is backward compatibilty with old mobiles.I don't know what power QCOM has to stop the WCDMA system via their patents but I know if they try to QCOM will become a paria in the telecomworld.A lot of companys has done so much more to develop the cellular systems than QCOM.The airinterface coding is just a very small part of a cellular system .Does anyone know what power the IPR:s gives in this case? The big misstake QCOM:s management did was not to see the danger that lied ahead with the ETSI vote.What they should have done was that they should have offered the WCDMA-one to ETSI as one of the alternatives for the vote and said that they would change it to open system not owned by QCOM.I am afraid that QCOM has lost now.Now the operators around the world can continue to choose GSM which today has the smallest phones and most features and still know that the system can be upgraded to a highspeed network in the future.QCOM:s management has just been to american.Fight everything in court,shortsighted etc. Of course they have made some fortunes in the short run.But what will happen in the company in the long run? /R

To: Harvey Rosenkrantz who wrote (7801)	1/31/1998 2:34:00 PM
From: Jim Lurgio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Harvey , Your patent search provided you with US information. Have they also filed all those with the EPO (European Patent Office )which has about 17 member nations in it ? Also don't forget some patents are being challenged in the US by ERICY. These costly patent cases really drag on and on. To me everything is still very cloudy .