Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Bullwinkle]

ET,

I have dug through some info and gone back over some posts and have something to present, but first I want to clarify a couple of things. In a previous post I said that speeds in excess of 2-3Gbps possibly 4-5Gpbs are to be reached. Upon refreshing my memory on the technicals I believe that number is in Megs, not the Gigs. Secondly, when I say that WCDMA is anything but efficient I should have said on a cost basis and based on the path chosen by TDMA/GSM operators. Here is a link to support that thought:
http://telephonyonline.com/ar/telecom_cingular_backs_away/


Ok, now onto the #'s. If the GSM operators were to choose to go directly to WCDMA there would be a cost savings almost equivalent to the traditional CDMA path, but that does not look like that will happen for various reasons such as the economy, etc. The following link gives a pretty good comparison of the costs for the path of each of the technologies and options for the road to 3G (the pertinent info is at the bottom of the article, but I suggest reading it all as it is very good and even gives a link that touches on 4G):
http://www.wirelessdevnet.com/channels/wireless/training/mobilewirelesstomorrow6.html


The next link supports the differences between the technologies and ease/difficulty of upgrades:
http://66.218.71.225/search/cache?p=cdma+towers&ei=UTF-8&url=-1fjd0pRMMUJ:std.occ.cc.mi.us/d....


On the network deployment side of things I found a link of what it will cost Telstra to deploy a good sized CDMA network of base stations (103 base stations at a cost of AU$231 Million).
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/communications/story/0,2000048620,20275090,00.htm

Now we get an idea what each base station will cost, but it is based on Aussie dollars and not US dollars. The conversion rate for this deployment in the USA would roughly be US$152 Million, but there are other issues to consider... First of all the Telstra deployment will probably occur in a lot of "outback" territory. This makes it much more simple to deploy as opposed to a deployment in a metropolitan area such as Los Angeles for instance. People do not want the towers in their backyard due to the EMF's transmitted by such a set-up. So I have provided a link on what the additional cost would be for a metro deployment. This takes into consideration aesthetics, environmental concerns, construction and legal costs:
http://www.umass.edu/tei/ogia/pilgrim/celltower/

Aside from all of this is also the type of tower used, such as a roof top model, mono-pole, etc. I do not have the costs for each of these, but let's use the #'s presented as a worst case scenario being as those would be less costly to deploy. I think I read somewhere that AT&T deployed a mono-pole set-up in Arizona out in the middle of nowhere for something like $452K, so you get the idea of what I mean.

Well that is it and now for fun, I have included some other cool links I ran across...

Cellular Contract info:
http://www.cellular-news.com/infrastructure_contracts/

Cell and Satellite (costs to run on page 9):
http://www.actonline.ws/Download/USFWorkshop/McLean.pdf

World's first WCDMA/GSM calls:
http://www.cellular.co.za/news_2002/061102-qualcomm_announces_world.htm

Wireless FAQ:
http://www.actonline.ws/Download/USFWorkshop/McLean.pdf

SnapTrack (QCOM sub for GPS trucking and cell phone trackability):
http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/releases/snaptrack.pdf

WiFi FAQ:
http://www.austinwireless.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

I had fun doing putting this together and learned some more from the exercise. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did in doing it 8^)