This was posted on the AOL board and worth reading. M
Comments?
Subject: Who Makes the WCDMA Chips?
Date: 4/5/01 4:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: SROURA
Message-id: <20010405192352.00977.00002229@ng-ck1.aol.com>
This comes from the NOK website (I think someone may have published the entire release earlier today) and deals with WCDMA. Look at what NOK says:
...Nokia is extremely pleased to note that 3GPP has now brought to maturity the first WCDMA standard....
Agreement on the main functions and features of the Release 1999 WCDMA standard was made at the end of 1999, enabling the start of development of hardware components and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for the terminals and base stations. During 2000, the protocols controlling the use of the WCDMA air interface were refined and streamlined, resulting in the first functioning version of the Release 1999 WCDMA
standard in December 2000.
This December 2000 version of the standard is the one that Nokia and its test-terminal partners will use as a basis for testing network and terminal equipment during this year....
Nokia network and terminal pilot equipment used for testing until end of September 2001 are based on Release 99 December 2000 version, which is the first end-to-end version of the WCDMA standard to provide mobile network functionality. Network deployment will be started with this release....
This NOK release is very good for QCOM and I'm surprised there has been no comment on it from the press. Indeed, the release did not make either the NOK or QCOM sites. We get the following from the release:
1. As mentioned by some before, the WCDMA "standard" being used for testing WCDMA and for the initial deployments of WCDMA is the 1999 Release, which came out in a functioning version in December, 2000, just 4 months ago.
2. This 1999 release enables the "...start of development of hardware components and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)..."
3. Pilot testing equipment will be used until the end of Sept., 2001 and, after testing, the same equipment (assuming it works) will be used for the first networks.
Now, ask yourselves, who has manufactured ASICs under this 1999 Release? Who has said the ASICs and hardware components can be shipped for testing fairly soon? In case you forgot, the QCOM website contains the following press releases:
* Feb. 28 and March 1, 2001--QCOM WCDMA hardware and ASICs to be used by Sanyo and Samsung.
* March 20, 2001--QCOM announces 6200 and 6300 chipsets and software supporting WCDMA and other techs based on the 1999 Release.
* March 20, 2001--QCOM announces 6500 and 6600 chipsets and software supporting cdma2000 1x, WCDMA and GSM/GPRS, enabling 2G and 3G global roaming.
It seems that QCOM is ahead of all others again. Hopefully, if the Euros are hell bent on WCDMA, QCOM will make it happen rapidly and royalties will flow. This will improve the bottom line estimates which do not presently contain any WCDMA revenues. |
