ofdma

Qualcomm, Nokia end long-standing patent disputes

Lynnette Luna — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:52:21 -0400

The many bitter patent disputes between Qualcomm and Nokia have finally ended. The two telecom giants announced they have entered into a new 15-year patent agreement that effectively settles all litigation between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia of its complaint to the European Commission and numerous lawsuits filed in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Nokia filed a complaint with the EC in October 2005 with five other companies, which led to a flurry of lawsuits between Qualcomm and its rivals and several regulatory probes into Qualcomm's licensing practices. The two were also miles apart for some time when it came to renegotiating a new license agreement that expired in April 2007.

The new deal comes on the day Qualcomm and Nokia were to appear in a Delaware court to begin a key trial over WCDMA patents, but the judge had delayed the trial by a day. Nokia claimed Qualcomm charges too much for the patents. Nokia now has been granted a license under all of Qualcomm's patents for use in Nokia mobile devices and Nokia Siemens Networks infrastructure equipment. The agreement covers a number of technology standards, including GSM, EDGe, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMAX, LTE and others. Nokia also agreed not to use any of its patents directly against Qualcomm, enabling Qualcomm to integrate Nokia's technology into Qualcomm's chipsets.

The financial structure of the settlement includes an up-front payment and on-going royalties payable to Qualcomm. Nokia has agreed to assign ownership of a number of patents to Qualcomm, including patents declared as essential to WCDMA, GSM and OFDMA. The specific terms, however, are confidential.

Qualcomm investors breathed a sigh of relief, pushing the company's shares up 18.7 percent in after-hours trading.

Qualcomm delayed the release of its fiscal third-quarter results for several hours to announce the agreement with Nokia. The company's profits fell 6 percent to $748 million, or 45 cents a share, for the three months ended June 29, down from $798 million, or 47 cents a share, the previous year. Revenue grew 19 percent to $2.76 billion from $2.33 billion.

For more:
- read AP
- see this release

Related stories:
Nokia gains patent victory over Qualcomm in Germany. Nokia patent story
Nokia, Qualcomm head to court this week over CDMA patents. Nokia/Qualcomm story
Qualcomm-Nokia lawsuits continue to fly. Lawsuit story
Nokia sues Qualcomm in Europe. Nokia-Qualcomm story

Nortel goes its own way with LTE IPR licensing

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:59:56 -0400

Nortel has thrown a wrench into the LTE framework licensing agreement announced last month by seven wireless vendors. The vendor, known to hold some substantial IPR for OFDMA, has snubbed its nose at last month's framework agreement, instead going it alone on LTE IPR fees and announcing what is says is a competitive handset royalty rate of about 1 percent of the handset sales price for its portfolio of LTE essential patents.

The fee structure agreed to by Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, NextWave Wireless, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson calls for royalties for LTE that total less than 10 percent of the resale price for handsets and less than $10 for laptops. However, it is up to the companies involved to decide how this (up to) 10 percent is split between them. Nortel's plan would guarantee the vendor makes money.

Qualcomm and Motorola, to other big patent holders, are likely to stay out of the seven-vendor initiative and come out with their own LTE license schemes. How much visibility will that give in terms of industry IPR fees?

For more on Nortel's LTE play:
- read this Nortel LTE royalty press release

Related article:
Key vendors absent from new LTE licensing scheme

Forecasting wireless broadband is a complex proposition

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:59:58 -0400

I've had a few conversations now that center around the difficulties in projecting market growth for OFDMA-based mobile broadband systems, namely WiMAX and LTE (Long Term Evolution). It's no cut-and-dry prospect.

Ron Resnick, president of the WiMAX Forum, recently voiced his concern to me over analyst projections that forecast the market for one flavor of OFDMA as being bigger than another. "How are they getting there, because there are so many variables?" he lamented. That's why the WiMAX Forum plans to release a commissioned report soon, taking into account a number of variables.

What are they? In the mobile voice world, projections are relatively easy to make as most operators have deployed similar voice networks with similar coverage. But the mobile broadband world will be defined by the fact that not every operator will deploy their networks in the same way. Some will deploy fixed networks, others nomadic and still others fully mobile. What type of deployment an operator chooses has a bearing on capex, how many subscribers it will attract and what its return on investment could be. Frequency bands certainly play an important role given the fact that an OFDMA network would require more cell sites at 3.5 GHz than 700 MHz. Moreover, what sort of business plan are mobile broadband operators embarking on? A simple access model? VoIP services, mobile TV? How much spectrum does an operator have? Then there are technical considerations such as MIMO and smart antennas. The list goes on.

Michael Thelander, head of Signals Research, and a crew of experts have spent 15 months tackling these variables. His firm has released a new economic study evaluating mobile broadband. Rather than predicting any technology winners or subscribers, the firm plugged these different variables I mentioned to come up with economic feasibility of deploying OFDMA-based systems. Signals Research studied wireless broadband across 65 countries, eight frequency bands and the various flavors of OFDMA. The firm then plugged in different variables, such as nomadic vs. fully mobile deployments, to determine an operator's network economics.

For example, if an operator deployed a truly mobile broadband wireless network that is capable of deep in-building penetration to a handheld device at 2.5 GHz, covering the top 70 percent of the population would require about 11 times more coverage of cell sites than a network that was designed to provide semi-fixed coverage and nearly 20 times more coverage cell sites than a network that was designed to provide fixed wireless services, Thelander said.

Of course, just because it's cheaper to deploy a fixed network, doesn't mean every market can support one. The North American market has a limited market for fixed or semi-fixed networks, while a market like India, with low broadband penetration, could easily find success from such deployment scenarios.

"Given our analysis of existing telecom demand, combined with these metrics and their underlying economic implications, operators in developing markets may be better off initially designing their networks for nomadic or semi-fixed services and then grow into higher degrees of mobility as subscriber uptake increases and they begin to add new cell sites for capacity purposes," Thelander said.

The bottom line is the greater the risk, the greater the return. Operators taking the most risk are those deploying a fully mobile WiMAX network, such as Sprint, because the industry has yet to see a dramatic swing in mobile broadband subscriber uptake and usage patterns. "There has to be something that drives a lot of data," Thelander said.

"One could argue that with the introduction of a new broadband wireless network that all of a sudden there will be a dramatic swing in subscriber uptake and usage patterns," Thelander said. "We don't disagree, but if we use the demand that exists today in these countries, or even multiples of what exists today, as the frame of reference for predicting future adoption on these new networks, then fully mobile networks would be largely under-utilized and, as a result, network economics would suffer."

Clearly, the mobile broadband world has become inherently more complex.--Lynnette

'4G' standards jockey for position

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:59:53 -0500

The International Telecommunication Union hasn't officially sanctioned 4G standards yet but chances are they will be based on OFDMA technology and they'll be Long Term Evolution (LTE), the migration path for W-CDMA, Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), CDMA2000's path, and an advanced form of WiMAX since WiMAX was officially sanctioned as a 3G technology.

Verizon Wireless nailed its stake in the ground, committing to LTE to align itself with partner Vodafone. The operator's breakaway from its CDMA2000 path puts UMB in jeopardy since Sprint is committed to WiMAX. Since LTE is a 2009 story what type of momentum will WiMAX gain in the interim?

Related articles:
Nokia Siemens in joint LTE development with DoCoMo Report
LTE could bridge Verizon wireless, wireline Report

Airvana not so down with UMB

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 07:59:58 -0400

You know the ultra mobile broadband (UMB), the proposed 4G path for CDMA EV-DO technology, is in question when one of CDMA's biggest backers has its doubts about the prospects for the technology. Airvana, which has historically pushed the envelop on getting the next iteration of CDMA2000 out the door, told Unstrung that it's too early to say what technology will be adopted by operators for mobile broadband, but UMB's future looks fuzzy.

"It feels like the world seems to be moving to LTE, and Sprint has gone with WiMAX for now," Airvana CEO Randy Battat said. "We're not sure what the opportunity will be for UMB. We're less zealous about that than you might expect from the CDMA camp."

CDMA has always held the advantage when it comes to getting higher speed data networks out the door. But the move to 4G is essentially a clean slate for everyone since it's a jump to OFDMA-based networks. WiMAX now has the first-mover advantage and LTE looks to have the economies of scale advantage since it's the GSM migration path.

With Sprint moving to WiMAX, it appears the success of the technology rests on Verizon Wireless' shoulders, and it hasn't decided its path. The chances are high that LTE is the choice since Vodafone and Verizon plan on using the same technology for their 4G networks. We know Vodafone won't flip to UMB, so the choice is between WiMAX (now a 3G standard)--which can be used in the near term to stave off competitive threats--and LTE.

For Verizon, it all drills down to performance, CEO Lowell McAdam said in an interview published this week in sister publication FierceWireless. "The suppliers of that technology would love to get you to declare early on. My view is whether it's WiMAX, Rev. C or LTE, you make the visionaries deliver something," he said. "You evaluate what they deliver and then you decide what fits best in your network ... Technology is technology. There's no emotion about it. Let's see how it performs."

Indeed, a lot can happen before 2010, but vendors need to make the right bets now.--Lynnette

ALSO NOTED: Broadcom releases low-cost, single-chip WLAN solution; Tellabs wins a backhaul deal with Swisscom Mobile; and much

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 06:59:51 -0400

> Broadcom released a low-cost, single-chip WLAN solution. Release

> AT&T Mobility sells Nokia W-CDMA handset. Article

> Tellabs won a backhaul deal with Swisscom Mobile for HSDPA traffic. Article

> Agilent Technologies introduced a wireless networking test set and OFDMA measurement application software, forming a complete one-box transmitter and receiver test solution for Mobile WiMAX devices. Article

A resurgence of Flash-OFDM?

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 06:59:58 -0400

Flash-OFDM has pretty much fallen to the wayside since Qualcomm bought the business in early 2006. Qualcomm's intentions for the technology are clear on its website: "to expand its already extensive portfolio of OFDMA intellectual property and enhance Qualcomm's industry-leading R&D organization with expertise in OFDMA technology and products."

However, the technology took an unexpected turn last week when telecom heavyweight TeliaSonera Finland Oyj made a deal to provision wireless broadband services from Digita Oy's Flash-OFDM broadband network that operates in the 450 MHz band in Finland. TeliaSonera is using the technology as a way to cost effectively extend the reach of its fixed broadband services in more difficult-to-reach areas of Finland (See story No. 2).

Could Flash-OFDM be finally gaining some momentum now even though it appears Qualcomm isn't even pushing the technology?

Flash-OFDM has always been heralded as a superior technical solution for high-speed data but was stymied by its proprietary nature. For its part, Flarion had struggled to find a major operator willing to deploy a proprietary technology. On its own, Flarion had conducted a promising trial with Nextel Communications, but the carrier decided against adopting Flash-OFDM when it merged with Sprint. The technology was gaining some inroads into the public-safety sector when the District of Columbia in early 2004 launched a pilot high-speed wireless broadband network with Motorola and Flarion. Flarion also had pinned its hopes outside of the U.S. through trials with South Korea's SK Telecom, Europe's Vodafone and T-Mobile. Yet no major telecom operator ever made a solid commitment to the technology--until now. If all goes well, TeliaSonera Finland may offer a blueprint for others, plus give Qualcomm a better footing in Europe, where it has always sought a bigger footprint.

According to Bill Davidson, vice president of global marketing and investor relations, Flarion provided Qualcomm with 125 OFDMA-related patents (mostly having to do with handoff in a mobile environment) as well as skilled engineers needed to build up its OFDMA expertise as all mobile networks are expected to evolve into OFDMA. It is staying out of the WiMAX market, at least until it sees a substantial market for it, Davidson said. But Qualcomm probably didn't count on a potential market for Flash-OFDM itself. --Lynnette

SPOTLIGHT: What is 4G?

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 06:59:52 -0400

In-Stat says the technologies the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will declare as 4G technologies in the 2008/2009 timeframe are Long Term Evolution (LTE), Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) and IEEE 802.16m WiMAX. n-Stat analyst, Gemma Tedesco, said that two widely expected requirements for 4G technologies are that they be OFDMA-based, and that they support 100 Mbps for wide area mobile applications. Drivers of LTE, UMB and 802.16m WiMAX adoption are likely to herald the re-allocation of older spectrum for 4G technologies, the resolution of any WiMAX IPR issues and the creation of FDD profiles for 802.16e WiMAX. Release

ALSO NOTED: Exoteq Aps makes OFDM/OFDMA licensing deal with Qualcomm; U.K.'s Urban Wimax announces partnership with Nortel;and

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:59:51 -0400

> Exoteq Aps, a mobile broadband solutions developer in Denmark, agreed to license OFDM/OFDMA from Qualcomm. Release

> U.K. WiMAX provider, Urban Wimax, announced a partnership with Nortel to build and test a user-ready mobile WiMAX service ahead of the U.K.'s spectrum auction in early 2008. Article (telecoms.com sub. req.)

> Boingo Wireless is running a promotion for iPhone owners, giving them free WiFi in 13 North American airports during the month of August. Release

> Telecom Italia said its 3G subscribers surpassed 5 million at the end of June. Article

> Singapore's Starhub says that it will launch full HSPA service this weekend. Article

Qualcomm buys SoC assets from TeleCIS

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:01:36 -0400

Qualcomm purchased the system-on-a-chip engineering assets from WiMAX chipset vendor TeleCIS Wireless for an undisclosed amount, giving Qualcomm an entry into the mobile WiMAX market if it so chooses. The CDMA champion said the purchase will bolster its expertise in OFDMA technology, which promises to be the basis for a number of technologies, including the migration road map for CDMA 1xEV-DO and HSDPA. Qualcomm, which has yet to support WiMAX, said it may enter the market if it sees a business case and demand for products. It has been busy heavily promoting Ultra Mobile Broadband, the OFDMA road map for 1xEV-DO and Long Term Evolution, the road map for HSDPA, but Qualcomm executives said they will build a dual-mode 3G-WiMAX chipset if its customers adopt the technology. The SoC design from TeleCIS gives it a platform to launch multi-mode chips.

For more about Qualcomm's SoC assets from TeleCIS:
- read this article from Telephony

SPOTLIGHT: The water in Israel

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 20:01:33 -0400

It must be something in the water in Israel. Alvarion has long been on the forefront of fixed WiMax developments, and now another Israeli company, Runcom Technologies, is moving to capture the pole position in mobile WiMax. The company was founded in 1997 and in 2000 introduced its proprietary OFDMA technology targeting Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB). OFDMA will be at the heart of 802.16e, so perhaps we should not be surprised that Runcom has signed a deal with Samsung to provide the Korean company with silicon for Samsung's WiBro gear. Runcom has deals with other South Korean companies and is negotiating similar deals in Japan. This week it will release its sample 802.16e SOC for client devices, more than a year ahead of competitors such as Intel. Website | Report