I don't write them, I thought some may like to see what is in the press. Perhaps you forgot about this one. Qcom only patent lawyers, called spinco for the press releases? Hope you are not confused, "They may be confusing people" see near end.
(I am more than willing to quit posting btw.)
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Wireless Standards
Don't Invite AT&T, Qualcomm to Same Party IBD 11 Dec 2000
"We are deploying Wide-band COMA, which is not related to COMA. " -Ken Woo, AT&T spokesman
It's a tale of spin and outrage. Of accusation and denunciation. The election? Florida? No, this is a tale of two giants of the wireless world in a scrap that makes dimpled chads seem logical.
The feud pits AT&T Corp.'s Wireless unit against Qualcomm Corp. The truth is clouded by acronyms that swarm like insects. Analysts say the spat is not all that unusual, but that investors should be aware. The row started with a Dec. 1 Qualcomm press release. It claimed that AT&T had "embraced" Qualcomm's Code Division Multiple Access, a standard for transmitting data wirelessly. Qualcomr invented CDMA.
In its release, San Diego-based Qualcomm said it "applauded A T &T Wireless' decision to embrace CDMA technology and deploy third-generation (3D) W (for Wideband) CDMA networks beginning in 2002, with rapid expansion thereafter."
The release then quoted Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, executive vice president of Qualcomm: "AT&T's plans represent a long-awaited decision in favor of CDMA technology by another leading U .S. operator".
Qualcomm issued its praise for AT&T the day after AT&T made two big announcements that analysts took as bad news for Qualcomm.
First, .Japan's NTT DoCoMo bought 16% of AT&T Wireless. That deal gives AT&T access to Japan's dominant wireless Internet technology, called I-mode. Some analysts say I-mode can become the global standard. Some 14 million Japanese surf the Web on cell phones that have i-mode technology.
Second, AT&T said it will upgrade its U.S, wireless network with GSM technology. GSM stands for Global System for Mobile communications. GSM is almost universal in Europe and Asia and far outpaces Qual.comm's CDMA worldwide.
Hold the phone. With AT&T upping its GSM ante and joining forces with a non-CDMA partner, how could Qualcomm say that A T&T had "embraced" CDMA?
In Seattle, AT&T Wireless brass got riled. A T &T spokesman Ken Woo denounced Qualcomm's release as "spin." That was one of his polite words. He used other phrases that he later asked to rescind.
"The statements issued regarding AT&T Wireless' technology choices are not correctly represented by the Qualcomm press release," Woo said, after cooling down. Qualcomm, he says, doesn't own WCDMA, and WCDMA isn't the same as CDMA. The similar names are an "unfortunate choice of terms developed by the Asians and Europeans," he explained.
Woo says WCDMA is also known as UMTS, for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System. Though it's confusing, WCDMA is seen as the.world standard for the next generation of GSM. He says that as of September, "GSM has 311.2 million customers worldwide and TDMA has 65 million. (TDMA is another wireless standard for sending data and also is used by AT&T.) CDMA has only 57 million customers worldwide. I would say that is not a figure that dominates world technology."
To be clear, Woo added, "We are deploying Wideband CDMA, which is not related to CDMA."
Told of Woo's reaction, did Qualcomm temper its claim of AT&T's "embrace"? No.
"If they're saying that, then they don't understand what it is they are deploying," said Steve Altman, an executive vice president at Qualcomm.
"WCDMA is CDMA," he said. "Our patents cover WCDMA absolutely, and we have more than 30 companies that signed WCDMA agreements with us and agreed to pay us royalties so long as they use any of our patents." How does that translate into AT&T's "embrace" of CDMA? Altman says it flows through A T &T purchases of WCDMA hardware from Qualcomm customers; He said, "The licenses that we've granted to these companies allow them to sell WCDMA equipment to AT&T and to other carriers around the world."
Does Qualcomm have a straight-line deal with AT&T? "We don't have a contract with AT&T," Altman said. "We're not saying AT&T's going to pay us royalties. "
He defended the press release. "It doesn't say we have a contract," be said. "It says we're thrilled that AT&T is going to go with CPMA, and that it benefits us because we've licensed 30 different companies to manufacture WCDMA."
Who's right? Yeah, and who's president-elect of the U.S.? Asked to play judge, Bill Plummer, Washington based vice president of cell-phone maker Nokia Corp.,backed AT&T. "Wideband CDMA is not about Qualcomm," Plummer said. "It's not a proprietary standard.
Wldeband CDMA is the product of an open process of standardization with a large number of contributors. It is an entirely different system."
But Qualcomm does have a claim, Plummer said, "to the extent that Qualcomm contributed to the development of that technology." In the PR biz, timing is everything. Was Qualcomm trying to offset AT&T's two big announcements? Could be, especially in light of comments by European Union Commissioner Erkki Liikanen. He called the AT&T deal with NTT DoCoMo "one of the most important decisions taken in years. We all know that as long as there is not one global (wireless) standard, there is not really global growth."
" Any time Qualcomm puts out. A press release, you're going to see a good amount of spin," said Larry Swayse, senior :vice president of Allied Business Intelligence, a market research firm in Oyster Bay, N.Y. "Investors need to do a lot more homework, especially now, when there's a lot of heat on most wireless companies .to present themselves in the best possible light."
Then Swayse, who says his firm has worked for both companies, said- more. He called Qualcomm "pretty much a company of patent lawyers. They may be confusing people who aren't involved in the wireless industry intimately," he said.
He added, "Qualcomm is going to make some money off WCDMA, but saying that, then they aren't going to be as enhanced by AT&T Wireless .as they would like people. to think. They wanted to show the financial world they were still the king. And it may not be the case when you really dig down."
Swayse wasn't alone in aiming tough words toward Qualcomm. .
The San Diego company is known as "Spinco," said Bryan Prohm, an analyst with market researcher Gartner Dataquest in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. "To me, it was kind of a snow job press release," Prohm said. He dismisses Qualcomm's claim of WCDMA authorship. NTT DoCoMo "was really the progenitor of Wide-band CDMA," he said. ."Qualcomm is exploiting the fact that there's CDMA in the acronym of a technology that AT&T will deploy,"
And now, back to Florida,
And one more take on this
Andrew Seybold on ATT
Several weeks ago, I speculated on the rumor that ATT wireless might change their technology roadmap and that also, NTT DoCoMo might invest in them. This past week, both of these things happened. Although the changes in their technology roadmap are not going to happen exactly as I suggested. Instead of ATT Wireless announcing that they were changing out their TDMA system in favor of GSM GPRS, the European standard, they added GSM GPRS to their roadmap and they also added wide band CDMA or UMTS, third generation technology as well. The result of adding these two technologies, is that ATT will have the most complex wireless network in existence as they move forward. Picture this, on their 800 Mhz systems they will continue to support analog cellular, as they are required to do by law, use TDMA technology for digital voice services, and continue to support cellular digital packet data for wireless data. On their 1900 Mhz systems, they will augment their existing TDMA voice service with GSM GPRS for voice and data. While they claim that GPRS will permit them to offer 115 Kbits per second data, the reality is that the true data rate will be closer to 30 Kbits per second. So before they even start rolling out their third generation services, they will be supporting three different flavors of voice technology, analog, TDMA and GSM, and two different types of data access, CDPD and GPRS. From here on out, it really gets messy. Moving toward third generation services, they have chosen to continue to try to deploy a technology called EDGE, which I understand may not even be viable. And also overlay Wide Band CDMA or UMTS 2000.
If they actually deploy all these technologies, they will then be supporting five different voice technologies and four different data technologies. And they are promoting this roadmap as a clean migration path to the future? I have to ask myself, how they could possibly have come up this system design. It is the most complex mix of wireless technologies ever proposed and the costs to implement all of this will be higher for both ATT and the consumer. Handset vendors are going to have a hard time trying to figure out what types of devices to build, and customers are going to have to understand in which markets each of the various technologies are available and when. Consumers are going to have to trade out their handsets at least once, if not up to three times as this network evolves. If, as I believe that EDGE never sees the light of day, then the design of the network becomes somewhat more realistic, but it will still be made up of four different voice technologies and three data modes. The question is how did they ever dream up this design? The answer is that they are trying to please many different groups of folks. For NTT DoCoMo's billions, they have agreed to move to Wide Band CDMA for their generation network, because that is what NTT DoCoMo wants to have happen. ATT wireless is going to also be working with NTT DoCoMo to deploy the very successful I-Mode wireless Internet access, which is one of the reasons they have chosen GSM GPRS. NTT DoCoMo's infusion of almost $10 Billion for16 per cent of the company, will please Wall Street, as well as faster deployment of third generation technology. And TDMA and EDGE were left in the mix to appease the rest of the TDMA carriers, who would be left in the lurch, if the largest TDMA carrier in the world walked away from it. So ATT Wireless has devised a plan that is all things to all people, except in all of this, they seem to have forgotten the customer. The customer, who is going to have to pay more for their phones, the customer who is going to have to trade up to new phones several times, and the customer, who will not have as many choices when it comes to wireless devices on the ATT network as they will on networks with fewer technologies. ATT's competitors should be heaving a sigh of relief. Instead of forcing some of them to follow in ATT's footprint, they will be able to concentrate instead on their own technology course, and perhaps, on picking up some number of ATT's customers as well. For ABC news.com this is Andy Seybold. |
