> -----Original Message-----
> From: Musandu [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 8:59 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Sats vs plain UMTS
>
>
> Could hand held satelitte phones kill UMTS even before it
> takes root, as the key tools for personal high bandwidth
> internet access?
>
> Yours truly,
> Nyagudi Musandu
Extremely unlikely. First, satellite phone systems support
only low-bitrate data (9.6 kbps). There are planned larger
bandwidth systems (e.g., Teledesic) but the sat-phone
business is quite fuzzy following the collapse of Iridium,
ICO's problems, and constant market repositioning in the
LEOS/MEOS space in which only Globalstar is flying...
Terrestial wireless systems (market leader is now GSM with
~260 million subscribers and a wide geographical footprint
except in the Americas) have a huge head start and will very
likely continue to dominate the market. UMTS is one part of
the ITU's IMT-2000 family of 3G systems with a limited set
of radio interfaces (see www.itu.int/imt/ or perhaps
www.gsmworld.com).
TDMA-based 2.5G systems using GPRS (and perhaps EDGE) will
clearly be an important mobile data transition platform to
3G systems (supporting up to 2 Mbps). 3G systems based on
WCDMA will probably be deployed first in Japan in early 2001.
One of the first movers will be NTT Docomo: their year-old
"i-mode" mobile data service, although low-bandwidth, has
demonstrated the potential market with already around 6
million subscribers. On that basis, NTT Docomo is now the
largest ISP in Japan and has over 8,000 i-mode content providers.
Elsewhere, the bet is on WAP (www.wapforum.com) but expect to
see much convergence between WAP and "i-mode" (actually a
simplified HTML) in the next year.
Bob
