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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: brian h who wrote (1626)	3/22/1999 9:56:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

China most definitely should be open to different standards. But people should not expect Chinese operators to invest literally billions of dollars in CDMA equipment if they do not want to do so. "Open markets" is not the same thing as "let's force the Chinese to pour billions of dollars into CDMA". If American companies want to invest billions in building Chinese CDMA networks, I think they should be allowed to do so. But demanding a massive pay-off to US companies from China in exchange of a WTO membership is not my idea of free competition. On purely commercial basis, I doubt that any operator would be willing to invest in CDMA networks in China. The subscriber base of 20 million that GSM has in China means that IS-95 would be at a considerable disadvantage. I'd like to point out that any major operator was free to enter a substantial CDMA2000 proposal for the Finnish 3G bidding competition. Nobody wanted to do that. When England opens bidding for 3G licenses this year it's possible that all the licenses will go to W-CDMA once again. Is this unfair? No - anyone can scrape up a billion or so and start up a CDMA2000 network in England or Finland. If operators do not think that this is a commercially viable option, should governments force them to cough up the money? Tero

To: brian h who wrote (1626)	3/22/1999 10:30:00 AM
From: Mika Kukkanen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Many questions and maybe some answers here.. First my reminder that this was the Nokia thread was the fact that the postings took a distinctly Qualcomm stance and had no relevancy to the the thread! I have always been in 2 minds about having technology competition with in certain markets. The negative argument can be proven with the example of the US, a fragmented market place and behind in cellular penetration. The positive is that an operator has choice...now that brings up another issue: Aren't Qualcomm (directly or indirectly) still bidding for licenses themselves and this means that there is in fact no choice. It is widely recognised that the consumer does not choose technology, but more likely to choose a phone supplier on cost only. I am in general open to having technology competition, but nobody has failed to notice that it is not about the best technology but much more on market share. In Europe it is of paramount importance that we can roam, opening competition to differing technologies will in fact lower the choice of operators I can choose in another country. Again..me the consumer loses! Tero pointed out the way licensees are likely to go here in Europe, the same could happen in China. An article saying they will be open to go with cdma2000 is just that, "an article". Doing it, is another matter totally (likewise in Europe). As for handset variety. Due to the success of GSM and the larger market, there are far more variety in handsets than any other technology. If there are competing technologies, resources will be smaller to develop handsets for both markets (which could actually mean less choice). Mika PS There has never been any legislation in Europe to block out US technology as implied by rent-a-quote. All manufacturers have been welcome, it's not our fault that Qualcomm don't make GSM equipment!