Slacker,
<< I could quibble with a few of Grahame's statements in this article, ... but I think he has nailed some of the issues pretty well ... Could you explain to me what statements you agree with? >>
I did not say that I agreed with Grahame's statements (although I most certainly do with several), but I'll stand by my statement that he nailed the issues that seem to exist pretty well.
CDMA patent holder Qualcomm is in a fight with the South Korean cellular industry that could imperil the future direction of the cdma2000 evolutionary path ... They - and by they, I’m talking about parliamentarians and captains of industry - say that Qualcomm is discriminating against them.
That is a pretty strong statement but I believe an accurate one.
The "industry" referred to is more than just a couple of manufacturers (Samsung, SK, LG, Telson, et al) to some degree possibly the Korean Carriers, the Korean government, and the Korean Ministry of Telecommunications.
The severity of the issue is accented by the fact that this is being fought out publicly in the media with some detail that should be, IMO, rather confidential.
The gripe of the South Koreans is simple - they are annoyed that Qualcomm has granted royalty rates of 3% to Chinese CDMA manufacturers when they pay royalties of nearly 6%.
That's the gripe is it not?
Of course, Qualcomm is - and from one point of view, quite unfairly.
And yes, possibly unfairly (Qualcomm is discriminating against them) since evidently Qualcomm has offered the equivalent "China Deal" to Korea, albeit when prodded to Korea do so.
The Koreans are already looking beyond Qualcomm. Two of the three new Korean 3G networks have elected to go with the European-Japanese W-CDMA standard.
One could say that the network carriers did this before the China deal (with opposition from the OEMs and to some degree the Ministry), but this is in fact a weapon THEY (the Korean "industry") are capable of exploiting.
The Korean government has ordered manufacturers not to renew license agreements with Qualcomm.
This is not to be taken lightly. Again it accentuates the gravity of the situation.
Minister Yang is obviously (or maybe we should say was) a bit more proQualcomm - pro cdma2000 - or at least stronger in this regard than his predecessor. He has been relatively successful in creating an "uneven level playing field" to prolong the move to WCDMA and to find a home for the 3rd 3G license nobody wanted.
He holds some trump cards. he could quickly make that "ueneven level playing field" even and unlevel, and remove some of the barriers he has placed on WCDMA near term implementation, and sub migration from existing spectrum to new. This guy is obviously a valuable promoter of
And the Koreans have also made moves to help China develop its own TD-SCDMA standard, which seeks to bypass the royalty claims of both cdma2000 and W-CDMA.
Operative words here are "seeks to bypass" because I personally doubt that they can bypass Qualcomm IP, although as far as i am concerned this matter is not yet totally settled regardless of whether or not Qualcomm has licensed other players (Mobems, Agilent, Matsushita, HTC, IFR, Anritsu, Yiso, Rohde & Schwarz, Denso) CDMA License for 3G CDMA for TD-SCDMA.
This one could get tested further, particularly as it relates to cross licensing and TD-SCDMA itself could be brought front and center rather quickly.
The issue is much larger than royalties from IP, however
Most important is the emphasis that both the Korean government and OEMs place on the development of alternative modes of operation for 3G3. A shift in emphasis by the Koreans could affect the competitive advantage Qualcomm enjoys from the architectural lock and architectural control they have on cdma2000.
Obviously Qualcomm has a lock on cdma2000 (1xRTT/1xEV-DO) architecture, and proprietary control of its architecture. The same is not true for WCDMA, and it is not true for TD-SCDMA.
If Jacobs loses the support of Korea, the whole future of Qualcomm-driven standards such as cdma2000 and BREW, a multimedia environment analogous to Java and WAP, may be at risk.
That is a pretty strong statement, but ...
3GPP2 is evolving into much more politically charged environment than it ever has been in the past.
ETRI and the Korean OEMs hold some power there, and for the most part they have aligned with Qualcomm and Lucent who also has stayed very much aligned with Qualcomm against other players that would like to see the cdma2000 standards more "open" and less under Qualcomm's control.
Although I don't think that Qualcomm control of 1xEV-DV is seriously threatened (I do fully expect some harmonization within 3GPP2 for the framework) that is absolutely an issue that is on the table at the moment, and beyond 3GPP2 their is the matter of 3GPP/3GPP2 harmonization.
Incredibly ... hyping
Yes, Incredibly is the proper word. So is hyping as used in this context.
Incredibly, one of Jacobs’ letters to the Koreans slaps them for not hyping up their CDMA data offerings sufficiently and handing a public relations advantage to NTT DoCoMo. Jacobs seems so confident in the superiority of his preferred CDMA standards that he seems oblivious to reality.
I raised an eybrow myself when I saw the "open letter" with the criticism of the Koreans handling of a potential public relations advantage. Particularly since once the commercial "launches" in Korea really became commercial "launches" (February to March as opposed to October), handsets became powered by other than the non IMT-2000 compliant MSM5000 trial platform, and SKT and others were actually capable of achieving 144/153 kbps minimum IMT-2000 data transmission requirement in field as well as lab (rather than 120 kbps peak as oft reported), then Commissioner Yang did press the advantage despite the fact that in Korea 3G has specific reference to spectrum allocation and license.
I'm not sure Qualcomm should have added fuel to the fire by publishing the letter publicly.
The hype didn't belong in the letter, IMO.
While deriding the delays in W-CDMA deployment, he seems ignorant of the reality that at least one proposed cdma2000 launch in Japan has also been delayed for lack of handsets.
Hmm, what about that one, and what about the fact that cdma2000 is as we speak, only available in Korea. qualcomm technology to be sure, but the Koreans brought it to market.
Jacobs, who has been singularly obsessed with getting into China, is playing a risky game here. CDMA in China is being deployed as the secondary network of a secondary carrier in a market that, relative to its wealth, is already highly penetrated. The rewards in China may not be worth the losses in Korea.
<< I think that a valid argument could be made that Korea should get the lower rate, but I'm don't believe that Grahame made it. >>
I think that a compromise will be reached.
I think that the issues are serious.
I'm not sure that Grahame intended to construct an argument on why Korea should get the lower rate. My reaction to the article after a very thorough reread is that Grahame intended to flag the attendant issues.
My antenna was up in early spring of last year when I sensed that the Korean carriers (particularly SKT) were likely to adopt WCDMA (although initially I thought the government would hammer that down).
My antenna is up again, and has been for several weeks.
<< IMO...not a stellar example of journalism. >>
Vintage Lynch. Far from his best, or most caustic ever, but I thought it was pretty darned good. Certainly not namby pamby, but heck, my man Andy Seybold's running around telling the world about all Qualcomm's accomplishments in Korea, waving only the american flag while he does so, in not too namby pamby a fashion either.
Best,
- Eric - |
