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 : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (108562)	3/9/1999 12:35:00 PM
From: Boplicity	Respond to of 176387

AT&T CEO sees TDMA/GSM convergence without CDMA rcrnews.com. March 8, 1999 By Heather Weaver WASHINGTON—AT&T Corp. head C. Michael Armstrong envisions a global wireless world where Time Division Multiple Access and Global System for Mobile communications converge but TDMA and Code Division Multiple Access technologies remain separate. Armstrong, speaking last week at a luncheon sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, said he believes TDMA/GSM convergence would be relatively easy because TDMA technology is common to GSM. Such a convergence would build on AT&T's popular One Rate plan to create not only nationwide calling plans but international calling plans. The convergence will lead to a world where everything happens over wireless telephony, Armstrong said. ‘‘Look ahead to the next-generation wireless technologies like what we call the ‘world phone:' As the name implies, one phone that will work globally, powered by a 1000-hour battery, equipped with a 56 kilobit modem—activated with a touch of a thumb. And the generation after that, we'll be looking at wireless phones with a 384-kilobit modem to enable your phone to receive full-motion video—and still be small enough to fit into a vest pocket,'' he said. This next generation of mobile communications is the evolution that started with the cartridge pen, Armstrong said. ‘‘When I was in grade school, each student's desk was equipped with an ink well as the technology of writing hadn't changed since the day of the quill pen. Then came a new idea—a pen with its own ink cartridge built right into the barrel—and you could carry your ink well with you, wherever you went. The cartridge pen—the first mobile communications system,'' he said. Armstrong does not believe wireless telephony will replace wireline telephony but rather the two types of communications ‘‘will coexist for a long time ... [but] minutes of use will migrate because of convenience.'' He illustrated this point by saying that because he has a 600-minute bucket plan, he has been known to not get up from the chair at home to use the landline telephone in the kitchen. Rather, he reaches into his pocket and uses his wireless phone. ‘‘I am lazy, and it is convenient,'' he said. AT&T has a technology that could be seen as replacing the wireline, Armstrong commented. Project Angel—a wireless local loop technology that could allow a person to be transferred from their home service to their mobile service—will be a ‘‘viable market'' for AT&T, Armstrong said. He said he hopes to roll out full deployment of Project Angel in the near future but was not more specific.