OK, OK..... three's a charm.... just bustin' on ya RR ;-)
SAN DIEGO: so well.''
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2000 9:42:00 PM EST
Sep 25, 2000 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Worldwide, about 60 million cell phone users rely on CDMA networks, popular because they uses radio spectrum more efficiently and decrease the incidents of calls in a moving vehicle being dropped.
GSM, the current European standard, claims more than 200 million users. Europe, however, has adopted a version of CDMA, dubbed WCDMA, for its next-generation cellular networks that was developed by companies that built on Qualcomm technology.
Some analysts wonder if Qualcomm will be able to continue to collect royalties from WCDMA operators in particular at current market rates.
Some cellular carriers in Japan, Korea and the United States, meanwhile, are adopting CDMA2000, a separate standard for next-generation phones that is preferred by Qualcomm.
Prudential's royalty projections call for Qualcomm to collect dlrs 1.8 billion from CDMA2000 royalties in 2005 and dlrs 1.3 billion from WCDMA.
Courts in Europe and Japan have upheld Qualcomm patents for the underlying technology of both. Qualcomm expects patents to be challenged in other regions, but executives believe it will prevail in most cases.
"Whichever way it goes, it's not particularly critical to us as long as it's CDMA - and it will be CDMA - so it's moving ahead," Jacobs said in an interview.
Qualcomm suffered a serious setback in February when China Unicom, China's second-largest telecommunications company, reneged on a deal to deploy Qualcomm technology in a new mobile telephone network. The company's fortunes appeared to revive recently when Wu Jichuan, China's minister of information technology, said his country must rely on Qualcomm to meet the needs of the market. Qualcomm shares rose 6 percent on the day of Wu's comments.
Copyright 2000 Associated Press, All rights reserved
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