<font color=hotpink>Domestic mobile carriers reject Qualcomm's 5105 chips</font>
Domestic handset manufacturers have been forced to cancel plans to produce IS-95C cell phones adopting Qualcomm's MSM5105 chips after the chips were rejected by mobile-phone operators, industry sources said yesterday.
According to the sources, domestic mobile-phone operators including SK Telecom (SKT), the nation's largest wireless carrier, informed handset manufacturers in the middle of this month that they do not wish to be supplied with handsets adopting Qualcomm's 5105 chips.
Mobile-phone operators said that 5105 chips had problems because they do not support the convolution code, which is essential for high-speed data communications.
"We conducted tests on 5105 chips from last February and finally judged them unfit at the end of April after they failed to provide the speed of up to 144Kbps that we need," an SKT official said.
Korea Telecom Freetel (KTF) and LG Telecom (LGT) also recognized this problem and made an internal decision not to accept handsets with the chips.
So far there have been some cases in which mobile-phone operators found fault with chip functions and demanded minor adjustments in software, but this is the first time that they have rejected them outright.
Consequently, manufacturers who have planned or have already completed product designs using MSM 5105 chips have been forced to start over.
Reports have it that LG Electronics, Motorola and other middle- and small-sized cell-phone manufacturers adopted the chips or have been planning to do so.
But Samsung Electronics, the nation's largest handset manufacturer, discovered problems with the chips and switched its 5105 chip production lines for 5100 chips to go into mass production from this October.
"We had no choice but to cancel the plan to adopt 5105 chips. For the time being we will rely on color cell phones adopting the existing MSM5000," said an LGE official.
An official for a small handset manufacturer said that it will also drop plans to make products using 5105 chips.
He predicted that his company would sustain losses from the subsequent delay in the development of handsets and incur additional costs for R&D.
As a result, handsets for domestic distribution will go over directly from the existing MSM5000 chips to 5100 chips without going through 5105 chips.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm said that the supply rejection is not because of defects in the 5105 chips themselves but because they lack the functions required under the unique circumstances of Korean telecom services.
koreaherald.co.kr |
