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To: brian h who wrote (14747)	9/9/1998 9:33:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

Wow, I have to learn how to use these different fonts. They pack more emotional wallop. Can you do gothic? An important issue in trying to compare the valuations of these companies is the movement from GSM-900 to GSM-1800. Off-peak rates of GSM-1800 are now 3 cents a minute in England for example - with new networks. Operators worldwide are shifting from GSM-900 into GSM-1800 and generating a second wave of GSM sales. This is why Nokia's infrastructure order growth is topping 50%. Nokia does not finance the sales itself - which is a dubious way of generating sales and may come back to haunt the companies who engage in this kind of behaviour. Even in the oldest GSM country in the world, Finland, there is mushrooming of new investment in GSM-1800 equipment, because they enable dirt cheap call rates. Old operators have to upgrade, pressured by upstart GSM-1800 companies. The relevance to this thread? It is this evolution that is shutting IS-95 out of many markets - the new giant Singapore GSM 900/1800 network deal as an example. Practically every existing GSM-900 company will shift to GSM-1800 - this issue is central in evaluating CDMA's prospects in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. This year Nokia has zoomed past Lucent to world's number 2 mobile infrastructure provider when all network orders are calculated - largely on back of GSM-1800 supremacy. Does the stock value reflect this? Take a look at Lucent's and Nokia's P/E ratios and tell me. Maurice - the economics of new GSM networks and handsets were not predicted by CDMA camp. I don't see how 3-8 cents/minute can be economically beat by CDMA. England shows that the cheap rates can be achieved by companies with brand new GSM networks. As for handsets, I very much doubt that the chips for GSM and CDMA handsets cost as much when the GSM chip volume is one magnitude greater. These call rates are factual - and investors seem to believe these companies will make a lot of money at these rates. The claims of economical edge made by CDMA camp still seem like spin to me. Tero