To: tero kuittinen who wrote (1722 ) 4/7/1999 12:22:00 AM From: Maurice Winn Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 34857
*CDMA in China and bonkers PLA* Tero, you are overlaying your western free market concepts without backward compatibility onto the world of China. We should not allow our ideological positions to separate us from our lives or our money. Ramsey would perhaps compromise his life but would remain steadfast on his money, but he is only partly imbued with western ideology. In totalitarian regimes, one needs to think a bit differently. If one is the beneficiary of the alpha male's favours, then it can be very good indeed to be part of such a system [for a while anyway]. For example, South Korea used government power to demand cdmaOne become the official wireless system. So it came to pass. This was GOOD for Qualcomm, CDMA and me. It fortunately turned out good for the South Koreans too, overall. The investment strategy, 'bonkers' might be very good in China. It is actually the investment strategy used in the USA too, except that in the USA, instead of just the two clinical trial arms, GSM and cdmaOne, they use a fractalized interactive system with TDMA, GSM, cdmaOne and analogue all contending simultaneously with no intelligent analysis of who sells what where. This is called 'free market'. But it is still a 'bonkers' investment strategy because all the capital is still invested. In the inscrutable Chinese version of the 'bonkers' strategy, they are using just the two types of wireless, GSM and cdmaOne. It takes no more capital if both bonkers investments are owned by a single party than if the two technologies were handled by different parties. In fact there would probably be less capital invested because they'd be more circumspect about where they built competing networks. So both the Chinese and USA bonkers strategies are going to gobble a lot of capital, though the Chinese will use less capital because of no TDMA and no analogue. They will also use less because where GSM is heavily built out, they'll probably delay installing cdmaOne. So the Chinese 'bonkers' strategy should be very cost-effective. As time goes on, they'll lean one way or the other as they need to add capacity. When cdma2000, W-CDMA, Iridium and Globalstar are available, they'll add those as competing elements too. If cdmaOne is succeeding and is cheaper, they'll lean that way. If GSM is better, they'll go that way. My bets will all be on cdmaOne, cdma2000, W-CDMA, WWeb and Globalstar. I bet those mad hatters with their bonkers strategy increasingly choose cdmaOne over GSM as demand builds and capacity comes under pressure. Did you see those hot-stuff Metawave Two-Stick-Bathtub antennae gave a full 50% capacity improvement in cdmaOne trials. They expected 40% but presumably MIT's SurferM gave them detailed instruction on how to propagate the waves just-so and keep the sticks in time. With the MSM3100, I guess that cdmaOne will look even more attractive to those mad hatters in China who run bonkers networks. Nokia will refuse to buy the great Q! chips - they'll use click beetles/286 hybrids but at least they won't be buying from Q! You can see those Nokians won't be using any bonkers strategy if they go with your plan. Maurice PS: Notice that Ericy went bonkers too and despite people moaning at how obtuse I've been all these years for insisting that Ericy would indeed buy a cdmaOne licence, which they have now done, they are planning on selling both cdmaOne and GSM. I suspect that they plan to offer both products to the mad hatters of China for the bonkers strategy. The whole world is going 'bonkers'. My prescience must amaze you, Mika, Raymond and those who were convinced I was off my trolley. If you have any questions about the future, just ask! [Tero, just on the quiet, you should be aware that in Pommyland, they use the expression 'bonkers' in a euphemistic way to describe people interested and acting out human reproductive processes. This could give offence in China, so be circumspect about the use of the word].