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Technology Stocks : Ericsson overlook? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: w molloy who wrote (3249)	5/24/1999 4:57:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5390

Sure, China is on the poor end of the economic scale, but that has been changing rapidly. You ask who can afford 'fripperies like cellphones'. Quite a lot of people in China already own them. The rate of growth is nothing short of spectacular. Unfortunately, it is nearly all in GSM at the moment. Cellphones are no longer frippery. Korea had one of the big economic crunches of the 20th century and the sales of the cellphone 'frippery' shot up. Airline travel dropped spectacularly. It is not in dispute in the slightest that cdmaOne is far more cost effective than GSM for providing cellphone service. The delay in replacing GSM arises from the sunk value of GSM. People won't just remove a GSM system unless the economic advantage justifies it. Growth rates might cause such a change, or technology developments such as 3G. So GSM has got a while to go before it is ditched. In Europe, GSM replacement will probably happen with 3G which is a technology development which everyone will want. It will not be available on GSM. Therefore, GSM is toast. Maybe IS95 will always be smaller than GSM, but cdma2000 will not be smaller [including the W-CDMA variant of cdma2000]. Maurice

To: w molloy who wrote (3249)	5/24/1999 8:38:00 PM
From: DaveMG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5390

Seems to me the question investors have to answer is not which system will grab the Lions share but which will grow faster and who will benefit most from that growth? GSM has LOTS of momentum in the real world. There were approx 200 mil digital subs DEC98,130 mil are GSM and the rest split CDMA/TDMA. There is talk of 200mil GSM subs by Jan 2000, and 50 mil CDMA. Which system is growing faster? That's the easy part. Now what happens next, between the end of this year and 2003 for example? GSM is less economical than CDMA, this is an undisputed fact. One has to assume that sooner or later this fact HAS to become a issue, less so in Europe, where it is already too late, than in CHINA and other parts of the world ,where it's still very early.The only hope for GSM in CHina is political cronyism. CDMA has essentially taken the Americas but is barely built out. Japan will be entirely CDMA, Korea too. The 3G WCDMA game has stalled CDMAone growth but we'll see that the game can't go on forever. QCOM is moving ahead, WCDMA can't move without a Q blessing! The argument Tero makes about QCOM being a small fish amongst much bigger fish in a very large pond is the most serious. It's entirely possible that the BIG Three will take all but the royalty revenue. All the rest is just noise. CDMA will win. Dave