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

To: Ibexx who wrote (16258)	10/9/1998 10:11:00 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Respond to of 152472

more dollars will increase overcapacity situations and rank speculation. the longer we put off taking out medicine the worse the end result will be. jmho. good luck. qcom might be a great buy right now :-)

To: Ibexx who wrote (16258)	10/9/1998 11:05:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

All, Interesting Reading; Wireless potential to expand Bigger market in transmitting data opens as technology improves South China Morning Post "You ain't seen nothing yet" is the message from cellular telephone operators licking their lips about the potential of wireless data communications. As growth slows in the traditional voice market, a whole new and potentially much bigger market in sending data is opening up with the help of improved technology. This is a world were everything is connected by wireless. We are not just talking about sending e-mail and faxes by cellular means, but a world where cars, machines, computers, household appliances are hooked up using mobile-phone technology. Gas metres, for example, could be read remotely with data being sent back to the head office using wireless. Even pets and animals could be kept track of with signals from their collars. Vehicles could have wireless links either to track them or monitor such things as engine performance. SmarTone chief technology officer Bengt Nordstrom believes that the potential market for cellular lines in Hong Kong - with a population of 6.5 million - could be a staggering 43 million. Those figures include 700,000 lines for land and sea transport, three million lines for pets and animals, seven million lines for smart cards, 13 million for electronic devices and 12 million lines for metering and alarm systems. There are about 2.5 million cellular subscribers in Hong Kong, making it one of the most advanced mobile telephone markets in the world, with a penetration rate of 35 per cent in the population. On Mr Nordstrom's figures the penetration rate is more like 6 per cent, and nowhere near the market saturation the purely voice-based statistics suggest. The voice market of 6.5 million subscribers would be only 15 per cent of the potential markets for cellular lines. Data would be a massive, and largely untouched, 85 per cent of the market. "The non-voice market will be even more important than voice in terms of revenue," Mr Nordstrom said. Colin Tucker, a director at British cellular telephone company Orange - which is 49 per cent owned by Hutchison Whampoa - believes that in 10 years 90 per cent of all calls will be data related. This, of course, is music to the ears of investors in cellular companies concerned about slowing growth as markets mature. It applies especially to SmarTone, as the only pure cellular company listed in Hong Kong. The most optimistic forecasts for penetration in Hong Kong are 60- 70 per cent, although many see the market slowing rapidly as penetration rises. New customers will demand ever cheaper services before committing. It means growth in subscribers will mean ever increasing pressure on margins. Data offers a way out of this equation, opening up a massive new market. As always in telecommunications, technology is the key factor in shifting paradigms. In the past, data speeds (9.6 kilobits per second) have been too low with no real worldwide standard. This is changing. New systems will allow wireless data to be moved more efficiency using package switching. According to Mr Nordstrom, next year we should see the availability of what is known as high-speed circuit switched data, which will allow rates of 14.4 kilobits per second. By 2000, cellular technology will have embraced package rather than circuit switching, allowing much more efficient transmission of data. Data will still move at speeds of up to 14.4 kilobits per second, but along eight rather than four channels. By 2001, the next technology should allow speeds of 48 kilobits per second along eight traffic channels. This should result in improved utilisation of the radio network, especially for bursty Internet and intranet-based applications. The final step - which will come hopefully early in the next century - will be the introduction of wide-band cellular services. This should allow data speeds high enough for video transmission. As the speed of transmission rises, so the applications that require higher band width can be introduced. The introductions of the applications that use this new emerging capacity will be the key to getting customers to use the services. Mr Tucker said the use of wireless data was still slow growing. "The potential has not really started to come through," he said. (Copyright 1998) _____via IntellX_____ Publication Date: October 09, 1998 Powered by NewsReal's IndustryWatch ...back to top