chapq,
The statement that "China (China Unicom) etc. have now chosen to go for W-CDMA (this decision differs from previous intentions to use other standards)." caught my eye as well.
Problem with that piece I clipped, is that the text is by Ben Wood, paraphrasing Rob Conway.
Statements out of GSMA, are generally somewhat conservative, as opposed to those that udder from CDG.
Still, Conway is American, so maybe that has something to do with it, and he has gotten pretty bold with statements in print about W-CDMA accounting for 85% of the 100 or so 3G licenses that have or will be granted.
There seems to be a bit more spin in Rob than his processors.
GSMA probably has pretty strong indicators of who is gonna do what, however.
<< Eric, isn't it maybe time for the GSMA to allow at least some hint of a possibility of interoperability with modes other than those in "The GSM World"? >>
Rob Conways the man. Preaches it every day:
Message 15123454
The question of course becomes, how interoperable is interoperable, in a harmonized instead of converged set of standards?
Onus is on CDG and QUALCOMM to be interoperable with UMTS UTRA (and that means interoperable with GSM/GPRS), not the other way around. With 12% market share worldwide, and the numbers stacking up heavily in favor of W-CDMA, that is just a basic fact of life.
<< Do you expect Nokia, NEC, or anyone other than Qualcomm to develop a useable 3GSM chip by 2002? >>
More likely 2003. Korea the obvious driver since they will be full boat migrated cdma2000 as well as W-CDMA.
QUALCOMM SpinCo? Certainly in their best interest to be first and best to market.
The in demand chip however will be GSM/GPRS/W-CDMA.
<< Can you divine any likelihood of litigation of CDMA IPR? >>
My gut is that their will not be litigation with any major players.
QUALCOMM, to their credit, has been rather non-litigious.
... but they will litigate if necessary, and they will do so from a position of power. Their patent platform is strong.
I am surprised that the Nokia/Qualcomm license issue has dragged out as long as it has. As a shareholder of both, I'd like to see that settled, and the sooner the better. if NOK wants to be number one in CDMA, they HAVE to settle it.
- Eric - |
