Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: JMD who wrote (20137)	12/20/1998 5:41:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

re: European technology Wait until you see the new Nokia-SAK pocket phone with fold-out digital crampons and retractable chain saw focused on alpine pulpwood harvesters.

To: JMD who wrote (20137)	12/21/1998 5:24:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

JMD, your comments were like an announcement of the official arrival of the New Paradigm. Part of it anyway - the internationalization part. Economies from South Korea to NZ are already bottoming out by the look of it. Japan is having only a slight recession. Oil is cheap and Iraqi oil is still flowing, which is interesting as the USA could easily have stopped the flow. They did destroy a refinery at Basra so that was a capacity reduction action. On the Banana Wars, the USA picked many products to burden, which will spread the pain to many people in Europe to create maximum impact and awareness without doing economic damage to people in USA. Looked like a good move by Charlene and co. NTT wants equipment for 2001. [Post 20174] That implies a WWeb specification based on cdma2000 since VW40 wouldn't be ready then anyway. Intermediate upgrade paths are already clear for cdmaOne customers to high and higher data rates, pdQ and descendants, Globalstar duality. Tero claims China is ditching cdmaOne, silly boy. They are sensibly waiting until 3G is sorted out along with their political machinations. That will be sooner rather than later. Perry said we shouldn't read too much into the NTT gang announcement, but it DOES mean that a single standard is wanted. That means no multiplicity of standards is wanted by service providers. That means WWeb specs at Q! chip rate and synchronization. I'm waiting for the announcement by Q! and L M Ericsson tomorrow that they have agreed to a single standard based on the cdmaOne chip rate with further details to be confirmed. Of course the GSM crowd in USA are in more trouble than almost anyone. Elsewhere, GSM and cdmaOne are not much in direct competition. Every network expansion of GSM in USA is another cost they are sure to get when upgrade to WWeb is needed. And that will be sooner rather than later. They must be sweating profusely. [Post 20177] The IMF says USA to slow from 3.6% to 1.8% growth next year with stocks to drop! With oil back to its lows and the USA leading the New Paradigm, the world economy stable and even recovering a bit 1999 should see continuing high growth and stock market gains. Especially in telecommunications for those who have picked the right technologies and are doing a great job. Like the internet stocks which make me green with envy. [Post 20160] cdg.org The article by Michael Elling is well worth reading. What he says is a bit unnerving. The cost of producing a cdmaOne or GSM minute is really low. So there is a very long way to go on price drops yet. As competition builds, the prices will drop quickly. They are talking system utilization of only 25% as being a well-used system. Yikes! ------------------------------------------------------------ At 1000 minutes per month, per user, and assuming all production is consumed, then equilibrium costs of CDMA are $0.0011 per minute and for GSM are $0.0031 per minute. By the way, usage spread evenly over 20 hours per day equates to 5% of traffic in the peak busy hour. That works out to roughly $2 per user per month. No network can ever be run at peak efficiency; however, marketing and billing algorithms can be constructed that channel usage to between 25%-50%. At 50%, the cost per minute rises to $0.002 and $0.006 per minute, for CDMA and GSM respectively. At 25% utilization, a more meaningful number, the cost rises to $0.004 and $0.012 per minute respectively for CDMA and GSM. This in turn works out to $8 per user per month. --------------------------------------------------------------------- WWeb is going to be a boomer at these prices for cdmaOne and GSM even though 50 times as much capacity would be used by a single WWeb user than a cdmaOne user. 50 x $0.002 is 10 cent per minute production cost. Retail that at 20 cents per minute and most people would be happy to download some Web data on their pdQ, especially if you only pay for data on demand. While talking on the phone, you pay the low rate and as image downloading kicks in you go to the high price for a minute or two to get a short movie. Meanwhile, there is a LOT of price competition still to come between the operators. Mqurice