Glenn Fleishman’s Rebuttal
Glenn pointed yesterday to an open memo from Jeffrey
K. Belk, senior vice president of marketing at Qualcomm, on CDMA vs. Wi-Fi
on the road. Belk definitely had some interesting points, but as Glenn
says, “while his
fundamentals are almost always correct, he has set up some strawmen, and
has misstated the state of the Wi-Fi hot spot industry.”
I had a chance to try out Sprint’s CDMA2000 PCS Vision network myself for
the past month, and I was pleased with the speed; it’s faster than my T68i
phone, and both major CDMA carriers (Sprint
and Verizon)
offer an attractively-priced all-you-can-eat plan for around $80 a month.
Still, even if I had a plan like that, I’d use Wi-Fi hotspots occasionally
when I need the extra speed boost. Glenn nails it a lot in his rebuttal, but
particularly here: “If I can get 80 Kbps for $80 per month everywhere, but
find myself within short walks (or on top of) 1 Mbps for $50 per month in
certain places, the right answer might be a subscription to both services.
They’re not exclusive.”