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

To: Joe NYC who wrote (11470)	6/14/1998 9:39:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

Interesting view, Jozef. Today I found myself stuck in the lab on a Sunday afternoon waiting for some results... so I decided to visit Deja News and find out what American consumers have to say about the handset issue, just to broaden my horizons. I was deeply moved by the results, both as a Finn and as a Nokia stock owner. These are some messages I found in just 30 minutes, covering the last two months; after Nokia's recent phone launch and the new ATT price plan. I'd like to share some highlights with you about the world outside your city. God bless you, ordinary American people! ************************************************************* "I wasn't intending to buy another phone this weekend. I was in there to buy a CD (and people wonder why Best Buy sells CD's barely above cost) and saw the ATT rep pushing the 6160. I was shocked at the price. I'd known since I'd bought the Ericsson that this phone's arrival was imminent but I expected it to be priced at Q-phone type prices. But, hell, for 125 bucks I couldn't pass it up even though my girlfriend thinks I'm nuts." "Guess what..... No drop calls on the TDMA Cincinnati bell network and hell it even worked in elevators. As soon as we hit the door of a building with GTE CDMA the Q phone went searching for a signal!! Sure I'll bet we will find a spot where CDMA is better but I'll take 1 drop call over 10 drops any day." "The Q is quite a bit more fragile and has probably 30-40% shorter battery life. It does pick up signals in weak areas a tiny bit better than the Z. All accessories for both phones are very scarce and incredibly late in arriving. <sigh>" "I use At&T Chicago PCS and it works just fine, very happy with it. Right now it is the cheapest in the Chi area, 150 minutes, lots of extras for $25 an month and NO contract. I use a Erickson LX100, it is a nice phone. Got it for $150 with a $50 rebate." "I also live in the Chicago area and I love AT&T. I use the Nokia 6160 and the voice quality is amazing. I have the 500 minutes for 50 dollars plan. I highly recommend AT&T." "Motorola does make an all digital StarTac which is the same size as the analog unit you are now using, it also has much longer battery life and a larger screen. Given that it is a GSM phone it will have the features you want which CDMA doesn't have. However, like I said it is a digital phone only. If you absolutely must have a dual mode phone I would suggest the Nokia 6190 (the GSM1900 version of the 6100 series). Great battery, great software, and very small." "The poor showing of the 2180 notwithstanding, I have found that CDMA phones in general just don't seem to have battery life that can touch what we are routinely seeing in GSM products right now. This may be a case of CDMA not having as much time to mature." "The dropped call issue is one that Qualcomm has rather painted itself into a corner over. They have been advertising the hell out of how CDMA will REDUCE your number of dropped calls. However, I think they meant "in comparison to an overloaded AMPS system" and not "compared to the competing PCS technologies"." "I don't understand why the smaller CDMA phones are so large, but this isn't true of GSM phones. In North America you can buy the Nokia 6190 which weighs in at 4.7 ounces. This weight is with a battery than has been providing its users with over 3 hours of talk time and from 4 to 5 DAYS of standby." *************************************************** I think it's probably a good idea for any stock owner to visit Deja News every couple of months and here what the word on the street is. have a good one! Tero

To: Joe NYC who wrote (11470)	6/14/1998 12:33:00 PM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Jozef - regarding explaining how rational consumers will steer away from non-CDMA wireless (because of pricing) -- (and this is also directed at Tero) -- this is just the real-world confirmation of what we have been told (repeatedly) by Irwin Jacobs (and everyone else at Qualcomm) about CDMA having a roughly 3.7 fold advantage over GSM and TDMA with respect to how much capacity of wireless phone calls can be carried simultaneously on a wireless system. If AT&T is offering something on their non-CDMA based system that is comparable in price to what Sprint PCS is offering, I absolutely assume that AT&T is losing money on this. And it is yet another in a long line of unbelievable AT&T strategic decisions that is wrong, wrong, wrong; and will probably be studied in a business school case study at some point in the future. It seems to me that if one is trying to figure out WHO are Qualcomm's customers, it is not me (because I bought a QCP-2700), or my friend at the bank (who got a Samsung CDMA handset), it is companies like Sprint, Bell Atlantic, etc., who decided many years ago "let's check out the economics of spending $1 Billion (or whatever it is) on a wireless system. Should we choose A, or B (which has 3.7 times the capacity, for the same investment)?" Tero's quotes on people saying "I love my GSM handset" seem (to me) analogous to the following: A custom shirtmaker, who uses only the finest cotton, and the finest tailors, sets up shop next to a Sears store in a mall, and says "Sears will sell you a polyester dress shirt for $18. We will sell you a custom-made cotton shirt for $18 !" If they did this, I am sure one could find lots of rave reviews from customers of the custom shirt maker. But their business would be un-economic, and would lose out to Sears. Why are we (everyone on this thread except Tero) supposed to care that someone likes their non-CDMA handset? Those people do not place the next $1 Billion infrastructure order. When Tero says "but you have to have consumers who like the service, and will buy the handsets" -- well, there is ZERO indication that this is even an issue with CDMA. Jon.