To: Jon Koplik who wrote (20855 ) 1/6/1999 1:28:00 PM From: DaveMG Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Thanks for posting WSJ article Jon. To my knowledge the most positive Q piece they've ever published. On Jan. 1, a new European Union directive will take effect that could well spur the first digital trade war. Furthermore, they will impose a second-best technology on stagnant European economies and on the developing world at a time when the telecommunications gap is an increasingly important reason why there is an economic divide between nations. For starters, depending on the government rather than on the private marketplace to choose technical standards is bad economics. Adhering to an open marketplace is especially important in high-tech industries where intense competition usually yields the best technological solutions. The Japanese bureaucracy learned this when it mandated analogue high-definition television a The third problem is that the European standard is simply not the most efficient one. Even the current generation of CDMA networks have proven to be more efficient in high density areas like Hong Kong, Korea and Japan. GSM networks, by contrast, have become saturated quickly and had to be replaced in Australia. As 3rd generation systems come on-line, the efficiency gap will widen. A 3G system based on CDMA technology would operate at speeds of 1.5 million bits per second or more, and thus facilitate the new generation of
