-----Original Message-----
From: Musandu [mailto:musandu(_at_)ARCC(_dot_)OR(_dot_)KE]
Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 8:59 AM
To: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
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