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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Vayda who wrote (3571)	3/23/1999 1:52:00 PM
From: djane	Respond to of 29987

Isn't this a good development for G*? See bottom section. ITU Gives Up on Single 3G Standard totaltele.com By Vanessa Clark 22 March 1999 It seems that the International Telecommunication Union's dream of a single, world-wide third generation mobile standard has died. News from the radio communications committee meeting which finished Friday indicates that the ITU has resigned itself to living with three competing air interfaces. The meeting in Fortaleza, Brazil was set to finalize specifications for IMT-2000 - the ITU's brand for 3G systems - and also to resolve the long-running Intellectual Property Rights dispute between Qualcomm and Ericsson. Initial reports say the ITU failed to achieve either of these goals and settled for a compromise of three next generation air interfaces: cdma2000 - supported by a primarily North American group led by Qualcomm; wideband-CDMA, supported by European GSM manufacturers; and TDMA, supported by groups like the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium (UWCC). It then placed the responsibilty for making this family of standards work back in the hands of the manufacturers. This flies in the face of the ITU's previous strong support for a single 3G mobile standard. "As new leader of the ITU management team, I will do my best to assist the work of IMT-2000 and turn this dream into reality," said Yoshio Utsumi, secretary-general of the ITU at the beginning of the month. "We are closely watched in our efforts to lay the foundation for the future of telecommunication and will be judged by generations to some in our success - or failure, to bring the power of digital technology along with the full potential of affordable communication anywhere, anytime," he said. However, many observers remain phlegmatic about the result. "It's not surprising," said Andrew Wright, principal consultant at Analysys. "No one camp ... stood anything to gain by giving up [their IPR]." Further details are sketchy and no one is willing to comment on the IPR dispute until the ITU releases a statement on Wednesday. The UWCC have emerged as unexpected winners with this decision - as few observers expected their TDMA proposal stood much chance of being first past the post in the race to back the standard chosen for IMT-2000. "The results from Brazil are positive for TDMA and operators and consumers who want choices among 3G technologies," said Gregory Williams chairman of the UWCC and vice president of wireless sytems of SBC Communications Inc. Some analysts suggest that having more than one 3G air interface might actually have benefits that outweigh the loss of seamless global roaming and economies of scale. "If networks are not easily upgradeable then implementing 3G could be delayed or expensive [for some groups]," said Analysys' Wright.