Once again, QCOM will be suing, not being sued.
Let's take Nokia's announcement today about 3G. They are claiming that the first phones will not be global, but W-CDMA only. That hurdles will have to be overcome to produce a phone that will do both standards.
This leads us to a Let's move from the rhetoric of manufacturer's to one of what the operators will decide. Manufacturer's, whether they are Qualcomm, Ericsson, Nokia, Lucent, Motorola, Alcatel or whomever are in the business of selling product. In the process of selling that product, they have to convince it is a "can't miss moneymaker". Does that make their rhetoric correct? Half correct? Quarter correct? Wasn't Qualcomm early claim for CDMAOne to be 20X increase in voice capacity? Has that ever been achieved in the real world deployment? Didn't Ericsson suggest to us that CMDA would not work?
So for me to just sit here and listen to the noise of manufacturers sales pitch and buy it hook, line and sinker, isn't going to happen for me. Now, having stated this, in the 3G world, just how many users globally will need a multifunctional phone? How many Europeans will need to pay Qualcomm tax, for something that they probably will use for 2 weeks every 5 to 10 years when they come to the US for vacation? How many US residents will pay an Ericsson tax, essentially for the same thing and for the same reasons? Not everyone globe trots for business purposes. Not ever one is a 6 continent traveller like Ramsey and Maurice (that is if they have manage to done that). How many vacationers want a phone that their boss can call to disrupt their vacation? How many people are that important.
So why would an operator demand millions and millions of phones that cost is increased 5% for something that isn't going to be used. Sort of like having A/C in your car in Alaska, or rear window defrost feature in Brownsville.
So now this is where my point comes; if manufacturers are told that they don't want phones with multiple features to reduce the cost, what will QCOM response be? Everyone is assuming that Ericsson settlement is about capitulation to the fact that QCOM has all rights to CDMA, they don't. They didn't invent it either, US Army holds the original patent for wireless cellular CDMA. 1.25 MHz channel was a patent by none other than Phillips. Yet, if the operators, and this is a speculated IF, demand of manufacturers to design one mode phones, they are going to assend to that demand.
This leads me to another point about something Motorola direction could lead. What if I build a DSP that can be reprogrammed or with a smart card, change from CDMA 2000 to W-CDMA? How do you charge an IPR for that? Do you charge a rental fee directly to Ericsson or Qualcomm?
Now we have my really favorite argument, which is where is all this frequency spectrum going to come from to accomplish 2 Mb? Germany's operators are squacking about government's recent allocation, declaring it DOA as far as 2 Mb capable. Bell Atlantic and Bell South have both in trade mag's stated that they will need more frequency spectrum to accomplish 3G. Where is it? What to prevent the Wireless LAN crowd to jump the gun with 11 MBps Ethernet's to complete with this standard? As we have talked about MCOM, they are deploying a system that will do 128 or 144 KBps today.
So far we hear what the manufacturer's are pushing, but are people carefully listening to the operators? These guys have technologist that are capable of independent thought and CFO's that will peg what will be spent to generate a profitable return to satisfy their shareholders, regardless of silked suited, lizard skin tassled loafer sales pitches, no matter where they come from. |
