Conway to Issa: drop dead, you dunce...

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Nathan Cochrane <ncochrane () theage fairfax com au>
Reply-To: ncochrane () theage fairfax com au
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 10:11:08 +1000
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] Conway to Issa: drop dead, you dunce...

Hi Dave

Both Australia and England -- the only two major countries to deploy
fighting forces to Iraq as part of the "Coalition of the Willing" -- are
both solid GSM countries. Australia was the first country outside Europe to
deploy GSM in 1992.

According to the GSM Association, as of March 5 there were 824.7 million GSM
subscribers in 193 countries the world, and that is likely to break the 1
billion mark by the end of the year, it says.

http://www.gsmworld.com/news/statistics/index.shtml

Although there are small deployments of CDMA outside the US -- in Australia,
for instance, it replaced the ageing AMPS analog network and is used mostly
by farmers -- with the exception of South Korea it is largely confined to
the US, where there are about 100 million subscribers. GSM accounts for
68.57 per cent of the world's subscribers, whereas CDMA holds just 12.27 per
cent, according to the EMC Database.

http://www.emc-database.com/

The decision as to which standard is used should be made by the Iraqis
themselves based on what is in their national interest, not imposed in
colonial fashion by vested interests within the military-communication
complex of the US. Qualcomm, it should be remembered, is a major US military
supplier.

Qualcomm's OmniTRACS used in Kosovo
http://www.qualcomm.com/govsys/mobiledata.html

Homeland security @ Qualcomm
http://www.qualcomm.com/qwbs/fleetsolutions/homeland/

Doubtless one of the selling points of the Qualcomm technology will be the
ease with which the NSA will be able to eavesdrop on communications within
the region, as both those using the handsets and those calling them will be
open to easy interception. It will also mean that US forces in the region
will have easy access to secure mobile comms infrastructure ("Condor").

"The military will require that the Code Division Multiple Access-based PCS
system supplied by AT&T and Qualcomm use encryption and other security
features defined by the National Security Agency through its secretive
'Condor' program."

Qualcomm and the US military's "universal handset"
http://www.nwfusion.com/archive/2001/122071_07-02-2001.html

The important aspect now is that Iraqi civilians -- many of them women and
children -- are being killed seemingly indiscriminately by coalition forces,
so a discussion of which mobile standard to be used appears inappropriate,
even sordid and tacky. But in a reconstructed Iraq, communication alongside
sanitation and food distribution will be vitally important and so should not
be sacrificed on the altar of some capitalist carve-up of the country.

Further reading:
By 2002, GSM allowed mobile users to roam to more than 170 countries making
and receiving calls on one handset and with one global number. The
technology now accounts for more than 70% of the world’s digital mobile
phones. This market share is expected to grow even more with 3G systems, as
more than 85% are expected to be 3G GSM/W-CDMA (UMTS).
http://www.budde.com.au/TOC/TOC2812.html

Worldwide GSM roaming
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml

GSM FAQ
http://www.gsmworld.com/technology/faq.shtml





-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ip () v2 listbox com [mailto:owner-ip () v2 listbox com]On Behalf
Of Dave Farber
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 7:24 PM
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Conway to Issa: drop dead, you dunce...



------ Forwarded Message
From: Paul Saffo <psaffo () iftf org>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 19:03:46 -0800
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Conway to Issa: drop dead, you dunce...


Rob Conway retorts...

http://www.cmpnetasia.com/ViewArt.cfm?Artid=19229&Catid=5&subcat=48
John Walko, 31-Mar-2003

The GSM Association has responded vigorously to a second-term Republican
Congressman's outburst at plans to build a cellular network in post war Iraq
based on what was described as the 'outdated French standard' instead of the
'superior' CDMA technology developed by Qualcomm.

Rob Conway, CEO of the Association, said Congressman Darrell Issa's
intervention was "as ill-timed as it is misinformed".

In a letter to US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, Congressman Issa, a
former US Army captain, objected to plans by the US Agency for International
Development to use federal funds to build a GSM based network in Iraq. He
suggested it was outrageous that this could benefit companies from France
and Germany, and said any such network should be based on CDMA technology
that could benefit US equipment providers, notably Qualcomm, and 'safeguard
hundreds of thousand of American jobs'.

Conway said, " the right time to debate the technology will be when the real
conflict is over. And at that time we should look at the real facts, not the
Congressman's ill advised opinion. To suggest that GSM is simply a European
or French standard is, in the current climate, quite outrageous."

Conway added "the suggestion that CDMA technology be deployed in Iraq
post-war is completely at odds with the rest of the region and the majority
of the world. It would add to the country's isolation and arguably be at
odds with the overall war effort.

"I can't believe someone has started this debate at this time, and I
certainly can't believe it has been started from such a false position and
on such nationalistic terms."

The GSM Association CEO noted GSM is an 'open standard', so any manufacturer
from any country can make GSM equipment on a 'level playing field' -
including North American companies such as Motorola, Lucent and Nortel.

Issa suggested GSM (which in its very early development was referred to as
Groupe Special Mobile) was developed by the French, and that if it were
deployed in post-war Iraq, the system would be built by Alcatel or Siemens,
or 'elsewhere in western and Northern Europe'. Here he likely refers to
companies such as Ericsson of Sweden, the biggest supplier of cellular
infrastructure, and Finnish group Nokia.

Conway added major network operators in the USA offer GSM services such as
AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile USA. He stressed GSM is
already deployed in every country of the Middle East region - CDMA is not
deployed in any.

He noted GSM was installed in Afghanistan post-war by an American company
(TSI of New York) after a full tender process.

More than 20 Arab countries operate GSM networks that serve 60million
customers in the region. However, since Iraq has been under UN sanctions, it
has not been able to purchase GSM technology.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that Congressman Issa represents the San
Diego district of California, hometown of Qualcomm.

This story first appeared in CommsDesign.com, a US-based CMP publication.


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