Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Drew Williams who wrote (16770)	10/19/1998 8:38:00 PM
From: Caxton Rhodes	Respond to of 152472

INTERVIEW-Ericssonrejects Qualcomm threat By Paul de Bendern Sorry if this was posted already.... Caxton STOCKHOLM, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson said on Friday it would retaliate if U.S. high-tech company Qualcomm Inc did not license key technologies to European rivals. "If Qualcomm does not license us or the industry for whatever reason they claim, that will according to our statement mean we will not license them either," Ake Persson, vice-president for marketing and sales at Ericsson MobileSystems, told Reuters. Ericsson's comments raised the stakes in a dispute between European and U.S. companies over standardisation in the telecoms market, as it expands to include data exchange and Internetaccess. Qualcomm has written to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the global telecom body, saying it would not grant patent rights to companies using a European-backed standard to develop wireless communications products. The European Union has been promoting efforts to set up a common standard for the new products that would mimic the success of Europe's existing GSM mobile phone standard. This new standard, the wide band W-CDMA, draws heavily on a technology pioneered by Qualcomm known as CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), but Qualcomm says it would not be compatible with the competing standard that it supports -- CDMA 2000. Besides Qualcomm, there are two other big equipment manufacturers in the United States -- Motorola and Lucent Technologies , both co-authors of CDMA 2000. But European companies such as Ericsson, Nokia , Siemens AG and Alcatel , which use GSM, favourthe W-CDMA standard. U.S. officials have expressed concern that the EU, by backing a common European standard, will exclude competingtechnologies. Ericsson said it would take the ITU, a United Nations agency, another 12-14 months to decide the issue. "So there is still time to resolve whatever issues there might be needed to resolve," Persson said. But he said W-CDMA was the right standard to use. "We're actually developing the standards of the products the market is asking us to do... Wide band CDMA is being supported by...85 percent of operators worldwide." It was unreasonable for 85 percent of the world's operator community to accept another less capable standard to accommodate a single company, Persson said. "This is just another cry from Qualcomm," he said. "We're definitely sure this will not harm us." The W-CDMA standard has been endorsed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) -- a body composed mostly of industry representatives that draws up standards for the European market. If Qualcomm convinced the ETSI to reduce the performance capability of the wide band standard, then Ericsson would accept and provide that standard, Persson said. Ericsson shares closed up 10.5 crowns at 177.5. ((Stockholm newsroom, +46-8-700 1006, fax +46-8-211601, stockholm.newsroom@reuters.com))