I keep hearing this rumor

I heard this from my Cingular buddies some time ago, and now I keep hearing it more now that we're closing in on the fall... But Cingular is gearing up to buy another company out. A major gsm one.. Suposedly At&t or T Mobile/Voicestream... We talked about it and we agreed: we cant see AT&T giving up their business since their seems to be separate structure all together.... Now T Mobile on the other hand... Their's is almost identical to Cingular and any sites that go up are 50/50??? Kinda makes you think... It makes sense though.... Cingular wants a GSM product all across the board. If they scored VStream/TMobile, they would have alot of GSM sites in alot of states. Now I know there has been talk of this, and rumors have flown on all kinds of sites... But like I said, talk seems to be getting thicker...[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]

That could be true, but I'm thinking t-mobile will be the acquiring company. It's much bigger than cingular and is world wide rather than just US based

[cucopasuryn]

Well we have to wait until the FCC raise the spectrum cap, and if T-mobile is buying Cingular we have to wait until their debt goes down. maybe 5-10 yrs, maybe

Most of you talk about "debt' as something as trivial as consumer debt. Fortunately coroporate economics is more sophisticated than the occassional poster is aware. T-Mobile's debt is about 90% market dependant with 10% or so cash flow aggregate. It is also subsidized by the govt. of Germany, meaning whatever the interest rate they set the debt go's up or down depending and thirdly it is dependant on the price set by VoiceStream in its internal stock share agreement.

In other words the $60 billion debt is internally controlled by Germany and VoiceStream itself, two parties that self interest includes reducing that figure. And according to the economist as a short cut, either of the two can either lower interest or share percentage respectively to ameliorate the debt situation. All the 'rumours' are circulating heavily, even over at SBC and BellSouth but the fact is that T-Mobile is looking to merge with a controlling share, something Cingulars parents would not allow. There lies the dillemma....

Interesting note....BellSouth, pending Long Distance approval in the other 6 states maybe looking to aquire a LD company....Sprint rumours are now floating around, which means it would either have to sell its share of Cingular off becaase of the regulatory issues surrounding Sprint PCS or vice versa. IF the former is true, T-Mobile can merge with Cingular with a controlling share depending on who buys BellSouth's share.

[RBOCMAN]

Oh that was me...BTW

Actually, I think Cingular would aquire t Mobile... cingular is nation wide, with Cingular service thru every state whether or not gsm ot tdma. ANd Cingular is SBC... I dont think SBC would give up their wireless type services. And while T Mobile is an Euopean company, Cingular is a US one that has made SBC money last year.... Only two did: Verizon & Cingular, with Voicestream losing and AT&T really taking a hit... I cant see AT&T giving up their structure though: Their a 'broadband' company with a strong US base that does everything from cable to internet to wireless to landline.... SBC is the same type of company offering the same services, & like AT&T I dont see them giving up their wireless division as well... T Mobile is an Euorpean company and by losing the US, they wouldnt lose much other than a few customers in a country where GSM is not yet the leading standard. Cingular sell to T mobile? In the spirit of the whole european thing: "not bloody likely"... But hey.. it's only a rumor...[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[Leftclick]

What's SBC & GSM?

[rockstar]

SBC was a few landline companies... Pac bell, nevada bell, etc... Now they are SBC.. & now do waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than landline phone business. Cingular is their wireless branch. Gsm is the type of wireless service that all of the world pretty much operates on. Except the US, wich still uses tdma and cdma and even analog(!)?, however you can still use it here in the US if your wireless company supports it... THere's a glossary her on this web address... LOOK IT UP FOR MORE INFO!!!
And folks, I hate to say this, but I keep hearing the same thing: Cingular will be purchasing another compnay, by Dec or Jan I think. & I keep hearing it to be Voicestream.. but it's only a rumor. What turmoil this would cause if it went thru.

[RBOCMAN]

SBC and BellSouth BOTH comprise Cingular with 60% and 40% respective share. Management is pretty much split amongst the two with BellSouth controlling the strategic technical aspects and SBS all the financials and billing. SBC side of Cingular is also fractured into couple of other wireless companies they aquired and BellSouths side was BellSouth Mobility and its Mobitex interactive data infratructure(blackberry networks).


So basically all the bells including ma bell control the majority wireless industry now. Verizon(Bell Atlantic/GTE), Cingular(Southwestern Bell and BellSouth) and AT&T Wireless(Off shoot of AT&T).

No idea about Qwests wireless assests.

[Rasputin]

Deutche Telecom would love to get out of the debt issues involved with the Voicestream acquisition. The problem is that they paid top dollar for Voicestream and would lose money on the deal (billions). They have tried to do a merge with both ATT and Cingular, where T-Mobile would be in control, the debt would be reduced by offering shares of the new company. Unfortunetely, the Deutche people are high if they think that ATT or Cingular would do that, the only thing that they could do would be to purchase Qwests PCS division, Qwest needs to dump it to deal with their debt. Cingular would be best off by picking up T-Mobile, they need those PCS freqs to help with a network with an identity crisis of GSM and TDMA. Once the spectrum cap lifts there should be a couple of aquistions I believe that Cingular and Verizon are in the best position, ATT is more complicated with the DoMoCo minority ownership in ATT Wireless, they would need additional investment from Japan for an aquisition to happen, and would need buyoff from Japan.

[rockstar]

So... when the smoke clears.. it'll be Verizon versus Cingular... My choice Cingular as Verizon still depends on cdma...At least in my area

[RBOCMAN]

That scenario will most likely be true, but not for long. CDMA will eventually die, and then the focus will turn between differant 3GSM operators and who gets what technology first. I seriously have no idea how long Verizon thinks it can peddle Qualcomms CDMA.....sooner or later the coffee will brew and someone there hopefully will wake up.

[Rasputin]

When the smoke clears it will be CDMA technology on top, what do you think UMTS is based on Wide Band CDMA, the only problem with it is that they do not time sync like CDMA does and trying to connect between GSM and CDMA is a bit of a pain. Cingular is a ok system at GSM and TDMA, what they have going for them is cash. The same is true with Verizon, but the CDMA system, especially not with the 2.5G 1x system offers 2 times the voice capacity. CDMA is the best system to handle voice and data. GSM with GPRS is inefficient. That is why the GSM carriers will eventually have to go with the Wide Band CDMA, once they have the spectrum.

The smaller carriers will eventually have to disappear, the Qwest(needs cash),T-Mobile(parent co. would like to dump it), Alltel, Leap. Sprint could even be on the block if their debt situation does not get better. Cingular has a lot of work on hand to make their entire system GSM and the UMTS. I will put my money down on Verizon who just need to upgrade and pick up more freq capacity, which they could do with either Nextwave lics. MetroPCS, the NY Cablevision Lic. and or picking up smaller carriers. TDMA carriers like ATT/Cingular need the extra freqs sooner to deal with capacity issues, especially now with more data going through the systems.

Just my 2 cents worth

[RBOCMAN]

God damn...what have you been smoking. Not another CDMA vs GSM thing again..... They say little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and boy are they right. CDMA and W-CDMA isnt related or a natural progression, in fact if you notices the Industry itself will upgrade GSM to WCDMA beaucase its easier and more scalable. Are you telling me that the 100's of millions of GSM users and the companies that pioneer(every company with the exception Qualcomm)it are just gonna croak over for Qualcomm and Verizon to feel special about their CDMA? Gimme a break here.....your stuck in the short term.....2.5G is just a hold over till a wide digital footprint is made across the US and 3G is rolled out and until a world that consists solely of Kyocera and Qualcomm exists....CDMA will remain an upstart unscalable and globally unsupported.

[Rasputin]

A little knowledge goes a long way,W-CDMA is still under the Qualcomm umbrella, that is why Qualcomm will still make money off of W-CDMA, because of the patents that they hold on CDMA, Nokia has tried to go around Qualcomm with no success, in the patent arena. The only working 3G system right now is Qualcomm's CDMA, Asia is already set to go with real 3G CDMA. I am sorry I am talking to a techie with that technological marvel that is Bell Souths TDMA network, that will have to be phased in with GSM, then upgraded to W-CDMA. Qualcomm does not have to conquer the world with its technolgy, the techical limitations of GSM, have brought Qualcomm's technology to work. Right now the UMTS or attempted rip off of Qualcomms CDMA is just a step more than vaporware, look at all the 3G companies pulling out in Germany, or having to do sharing agreements. Look in Japan, KDDI system is overtaking DoMoCo 3G attempt in subscribers. I do not care if 3G Qualcomm is not in Europe, what I do care about and know is that for the near future Qualcomm CDMA is what is working. Korea has already laid out the 1st generation of true 3G with success during the World Cup. Hold on to your bleak hopes of GSM, Europe is already loaded to the hilt, CDMA is the only technolgy to handle data and voice capacity issues. Cingular is tens of billions of dollars away from W-CDMA and needs new freqs for it. CDMA is a viable 2G, 2.5G, and 3G solution, that is fully backward compatible. With the TDMA/GSM/W-CDMA Cingular/Bell South system you are trying to put together you have a lot of square pegs trying to fit into rounds pegs. How ever you try to call it UMTS/W-CDMA is still is CDMA and you will still have to fork over money to Qualcomm.

But that is just my opinion..

[rockstar]

Your kidding right??? Ya can put up on the figures in the world and say how good the technology is, but the truth of the matter is that whenever an 'improved' technology is introduced, people are so burnt out on the grandfathered technology that nobody really cares. I hate to sound this way, and Im sure I'll upset people, but that's way it is... Just look at the minidisc recorder... great practical, and utterly unwanted in about 70% of the world...Same thing with this.. Unless it shoots sparks and does backflips, GSM will still be the "Global Standard for Mobile"... Sorry guys....[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

[IdiOTeQnoLogY]

unfortunately you cannot compare Minidiscs to wireless nor can you compare wireless to the beta vs vhs battle.

wireless relies on spectrum. spectrum is a very scarce commodity these days.
the advantage of minidisc is size but the space to carry a discman is not a commodity.

wcdma is very bandwith hungry and especially in the us where the fcc has only plans to release about 90mhz of frequency over the next 5 years where the wireless industry (mostly the non cdma carriers) are asking for 200mhz. something has to give.

while cdma2000 carriers are succeeding in korea and japan while wcdma ones are struggling......something has to give.
while european carriers are all broke and scaling back plans cause of all the money they spent on wcdma frequency something has to give.

cdma may be the underdog and maybe will never be the global standard......but it sure as hell isnt going anywhere. do a little reading.

But cdma sucks... & funny you mention Japan, that's like the only place where the mini disc is widely used.. R.Stars point, I think, is while this may be a pratical idea, the world is probably tired of variying wireless technologies and since GSM is the standard, it'll be the one used...

[Rasputin]

CDMA sucks and GSM is the global standard. Yeah and so was AMPS the standard years ago. GSM needs to go to W-CDMA because GSM is not an efficient enough system to handle the traffic or future growth, there is no capacity gain of GSM over TDMA, they are birds of the same feather. GSM was developed in the early 80's and TDMA has been in existence from Bell Labs since the late 70's for telecom. Spread Sprectrum while it has been used in military technology since WW2, it was not in a CDMA form until the early 90's. Global roaming has been a bunch of hype, so few customers use their phones globally, what I care about is capacity, dropped calls, data rates, lack of backround noise. CDMA is a vast technological leap from the TDMA standard (GSM is just a dressed up TDMA). The GSM growth has come and gone. CDMA is a proven technology. Sprint once it can move a good number of users to it's 1x format, has enough spectrum in almost every market to go the 2x technology, they can do this because of the spectrum efficiencies of CDMA.

it is just my opinion

[larry]

I totally agree. This global roaming thing is a bunch of hype. The majority of us could care less if our phone will work in France or Germany. What's important to me and the average user is coverage and capacity here in the US and Canada. CDMA is by far on top comapred to GSM. Most GSM phones can't even roam in other countries because of the different frequencies.

[RBOCMAN]

I guess you isolationists think that the Wireless Industry is pioneered somewhere in the coverage area of Verizon? Or do I have to use analog to get there?

[bobolito]

I've always wondered, if TDMA carriers have capacity issues why move to GSM? I was doing the math and came up with this: GSM uses 200Khz channels while TDMA uses 30Khz channels. GSM can hold 8 time slots in the 200Khz channel while TDMA holds 3 time slots on its 30Khz channels. This means that GSM uses 25Khz + 25Khz per person talking (upstream + downstream) while TDMA uses 10Khz + 10Khz per person. Therefore, in a 200Khz chunk of bandwidth I can fit 10 people using TDMA phones but only 4 people using GSM phones. If this is so, what's the advantage of moving to GSM? Because bandwidth is scarce, isn't this going to create more problems as more and more people move to GSM? TDMA systems are saturated as it is now. What's going to happen when everyone moves to GSM in terms of capacity?

By the way, where is Aiwapro in this heated GSM/CDMA discussion?

[RBOCMAN]

I dont think there is any TDMA/GSM friction...technology wise. I consider them to be the same, with GSM being a structural upgrade. I do have a soft spot for TDMA, cause it represents the genius and ingenuity of the old Bell Labs legacy.

[Matt]

Those in the CDMA camp always discount the need for global roaming. Those in the GSM camp always point it out. It's a significant number of people - generally the high spending business users. VS has had $106 million in roaming revenue this year so far. Of course, some is domestic (mainly Cingular) and some is international. It's very important to those who need it. They probably choose a GSM carrier.

Larry - currently T-Mobile offers 9 phones. 5 are North American only, 4 are world phones. It's a mix that will continue - a couple more single bands, and at least two more tribands, hopefully the NOkia 6310i and 7210. I'm sure your statement is correct (most people's GSM phones can't roam internationally) but that isn't b/c they aren't available.

[Rasputin]

All of those great companies Nortel, Bell Labs (Lucent) have all floundered once they were broken off the parent company. Bell labs in its day did a great deal for cellular and the telecom industry.

[aiwapro]

Originally posted by: Rasputin All of those great companies Nortel, Bell Labs (Lucent) have all floundered once they were broken off the parent company. Bell labs in its day did a great deal for cellular and the telecom industry.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Nortel is the contractor for Voicestream (T-Mobile)'s EDGE network.

[aiwapro]

Originally posted by: Matt Larry - currently T-Mobile offers 9 phones. 5 are North American only, 4 are world phones. It's a mix that will continue - a couple more single bands, and at least two more tribands, hopefully the NOkia 6310i and 7210. I'm sure your statement is correct (most people's GSM phones can't roam internationally) but that isn't b/c they aren't available.

Hey Matt, Voicestream (T-Mobile) offers 7 world phones: P280, v.60, T68m, v.66, r225m, n105, and the q105.
The only North American only phones that they offer are the T193 and the 3390.

Even the dual-band phones (900/1900) are world phones, because if you look at Voicestream's roaming agreements, they give you atleast two (2) providers to choose from in each country, one being 1800 and the other being 900, so therefore if you have a dual-band phone you use the 900 provider, but if you pay a little bit more and get the tri-band phone, you can choose between the two providers in that country.
The point is that both the tri-band and the dual-band phones allow you to roam internationally, but it's the tri-band phone that gives you the more options on which provider you want to roam on.

[Matt]

Chris- you are correct. You posted why I left them out, but your analysis is accurate.

[Rasputin]

Voicestream uses a multi vendor enviroment. I worked on some of their stuff in Washington, they used Ericsson Equipment, I thought they used some Nortel for switching equipment.

[RBOCMAN]

Yeah Nortel has been contracted by VoiceStream and Cingular. Nortel contract with Cingular was written up during the BellSouth Mobility DCS days and its has been upgraded significantly. Incidently, Lucent currently has the Bell Labs 'division' but has failed to capitalize on any innovation that has come out of there. Nortel is a victim of bad management. Hence we have world where Cisco/Nokia/Ericsson reigns supreme.