Just riffin' on a Friday night.....keep in mind that IDCC has claimed essential IPRs in ALL 5 IMT2000 standards - 2 TDMA and 3 CDMA. More importantly, Nokia and IDCC have already agreed on a framework for payment of TDMA and CDMA royalties once the current co-development deal expires in 2/2002.
From the MG interview:
StreetSideInvestor: What is the extent of InterDigital’s relationship with Nokia?
Mr. Gercenstein: We have an extensive relationship with Nokia, both in the technology licensing area as well as a development of a piece of their 3rd generation technology called TDD. We are developing the entire technology suite for time-division duplex technology and expect it to be one of the third generation offerings from Nokia.
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More on the Nokia-IDCC relationship from the latest 10K:
....In the first of such arrangements, we entered into a strategic technology development agreement in February 1999 with Nokia covering the development of new technology for 3G wireless communications products designed for high data rate applications, such as Internet access. The agreement provides that we are to deliver technology building blocks for Nokia to use in 3G wireless products. It also provides that Nokia will fund the project, maintain an active role in the development plan and, when the development is complete, be able to use the technology in 3G products. We will own the developed technology and will have the ability to license the technology to other companies, as well as design, manufacture, sell and use products and components that utilize the resulting technology. Nokia has the right to terminate the agreement both for convenience (with certain financial ramifications) and for cause......
....The Nokia Agreement is paid-up, generally, through the period during which Nokia and InterDigital are engaged in the 3G development project. After such period, a structure is provided for determining future royalty payments. All of our current essential patents for 3G standards are included under the Nokia Agreement.
Again, note that IMT-2000 is a family of 5 standards: 2 TDMA and 3 CDMA standards.
From the Intel paper:
IMT-TC: CDMA TDD (WCDMA-TDD).
Time Division Duplex (TDD) targets public micro-cell and pico-cell environments, and, due to severe interference-related considerations, is intended primarily for indoor use. This standard is optimized for symmetrical and asymmetrical applications with high data rates.
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Public micro-cell and pico-cell environments?
3G CELLS IN PRIVATE NETWORKS
A terrestrial mobile network works on a series of overlapping radio cells, each with varying capacity and coverage. Buildings in urban areas, along with high capacity demands, result in cells being as small as a few hundred metres, whereas a little-used cell in an open area may cover an area of kilometres.
UMTS cells typically have a much smaller range than GSM cells, but like the 2G system, are built in three main varieties...
Macro-cells operate over a wide area up to one kilometre and service fast-moving, high-mobility users....
Micro-cells are used at a street level and provide extra capacity where a Macro-cell is struggling....
UMTS Micro-cells operate over a 400m distance....
Smaller still are Pico-cells, which under UMTS, may have a range as little as 75m, but offer higher performance in areas such as shopping centres....
GPRS is the key behind all UMTS high data rates, offering up to 384kbps to high mobility users in Macro-Cells, and up to 2Mbps to low mobility users within Pico-cells or quiet Micro-cells.
It's expected that privately-owned, licence-free Pico-cells could be the key to many killer business applications. If you're considering building a wireless Lan in your company, forget Ethernet 802.11 and look at a 2.5 or 3G Pico-cells instead. Stationary or slow-moving users within a building could enjoy access to the corporate Lan at 400kbps from EDGE and 2Mbps from UMTS. Since these technologies will allow users to remain connected all day and only pay for data sent, this effectively offers a high-performance wireless Lan.
Better still, if you own the Pico-cell, then the charging is down to you. Since it interfaces with your PBX, you can enjoy cheap 'outside' calls and free direct dialling to internal extensions. You could also continue a connection as you wander out of the building and seamlessly roam onto a public network. Shopping centres could install Pico-cells and deliver high-quality audio and video content with the temptation of discounted calls while within their walls. Future enhancements to 3G could see Pico-cell rates as high as 155Mbps. Forecasts predict around 40 per cent of Pico-cell traffic will be on private networks.
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