i was in Tokyo two weeks ago and talked to
analysts and people from carriers about this
topic.
the general feeling was that docomo will have
to keep their PDC system running until at least
2008/9.
reasons:
- they don't have the necessary 3G spectrum
to switch all their users to FOMA
- the battery issue won't be solved until there
is a redesigned chipset which involves major
investments. those won't happen anytime
soon.
- FOMA's (lateral) coverage will improve, but
not its depth, i.e. coverage inside buildings
etc. This won't improve unless they integrate a
dual mode chipset for either FOMA/PDC,
FOMA/PHS or FOMA/WLAN.
- of course PDC is and will stay docomo's
cash cow, so they can't *force* their users to
switch, because the users then might just
switch - to KDDI.
as far as the competition between
cdma2000-1x and FOMA goes, 1x seems to
have all the advantages on its side right now,
it's cheaper, it's more efficient, the handsets
are better, the batteries last longer; this
migration path just seems smoother than
docomo's.
so most people foresee a KDDI dominance in
the 3g arena for the next 2 years or so.
but no one, not even KDDI people, doubted for
a second that docomo will catch up by 2004/5,
if only for their sheer financial and marketing
power.
docomo is spending big big bucks to keep
their dominance in the corporate market which
is much more profitable than the consumer
market (profitability of corporate clients is
about 20-30% as opposed to 5-8% of private
consumers).
their marketing manpower is overwhelming, it
is estimated that they have about 50 times as
many corporate sales people as KDDI or
J-Phone.
And don't forget PHS which is the current and
future #1 for data transmission, at least for the
next 2-3 years.
flex
Received on Mon Dec 2 13:37:33 2002