Qualcomm

T-Mobile invests in (another) femtocell developer

Paul Rasmussen — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:32:13 -0400

Indications that European operators want to accelerate the deployment of 3G femtocells comes with the news that T-Mobile has joined with others to invest in an Israeli-based baseband developer. T-Mobile has joined with venture capital funds to invest US$12 million in Percello, a fabless start-up that claims its chip is the first dedicated to the 3G femtocell market.

Percello's CEO, Shlomo Gadot, was upbeat about its new PRC6000 chip. "It offers the highest level of integration, the most advanced features and the most efficient power consumption at the best price." He added that the SoC PRC6000 device supported all femtocell backhaul functions such as timing and security, was compliant with the 3GPP R7 baseline, and was capable of delivering downlink speeds of 21.6Mbps and 5.76Mbps in the uplink.

However, other developers might question some of these assertions--such as whether the design was complete, where it might be produced and when?

However T-Mobile seemed pleased with its investment: "The baseband chip that Percello is developing is the most critical component relating to quality and mass-market price points. Its team has a strong track record and we welcome their involvement in strengthening the growing femtocell ecosystem," said Klaus-Jurgen Krath, VP of radio network engineering and quality for T-Mobile International.

The new investors said that the funds would be used primarily to complete product development of the PRC6000 chip and to initiate sales and marketing activities. Earlier this week, Percello announced that it planned to use CEVA-Teaklite-III DSP core technology to help develop femtocell baseband chipsets.

For more on this story:
- go to EE Times and Globes Online

Related articles:
T-Mobile invests in femtocell maker. T-Mobile femtocell story
T-Mobile pilots femtocells in Germany. Trials story
Qualcomm buys into femtocell developer. Qualcomm story

Nokia/Qualcomm--new best friends

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:33:44 -0400

Nokia and Qualcomm have finally ended their long-winded and frequently acrimonious legal battle over patents. The two companies had legal actions pending in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy and China. The decision to end the row came after a German court had found against Qualcomm. The two companies have signed a fifteen-year agreement under which Qualcomm gives Nokia a licence to use its patents in Nokia handsets and in equipment manufactured by Nokia Siemens Networks. A number of standards are covered by the deal, including GSM, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMAX, LTE and other technologies. In addition Nokia has agreed to allow Qualcomm to include Nokia technology in its chips. The agreement includes an upfront payment to Qualcomm by Nokia as well future royalty payments. Nokia has also agreed to hand over some essential patents for WCDMA, GSM and OFDMA to Qualcomm but the terms of this arrangement are secret. Shares in both companies rose when the agreement was announced.

For more on this story:
- go to The Register and the Financial Times

Related stories:
Qualcomm, Nokia reach new patent agreement, end years of bitter disputes. Article
Nokia gains patent victory over Qualcomm in Germany. Article
ITC upholds ruling favoring Nokia in Qualcomm suit. Article

Femtocell design tested for LTE compliance

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:02:03 -0400

With LTE being seen as a major boost to the future success of femtocells, the joint testing of a reference design against the proposed LTE standard should help with its chances.

The joint testing has been conducted by picoChip, a U.K.-based femtocell silicon developer; mimoOn, a German-based SDR specialist; and the test equipment vendor Agilent Technologies. The objective behind the test was to verify that the femtocell reference design met the requirements of the LTE standard as measured by the recently developed 3GPP LTE modulation analysis option from Agilent.

picoChip and mimoOn, which have been co-operating on the reference design for the past 12 months, recently announced the availability of what they suggest are the first LTE femtocell and picocell reference designs, the PC8608 Home eNodeB and PC8618 eNodeB respectively. The design is based upon the same hardware platforms as picoChip's WiMAX products.

For more on this story:
- go to EE Times Germany

Related stories:
Qualcomm buys into femtocell developer. Qualcomm story
Femtocells--big market, bigger questions. Editorial on femtocell

ALSO NOTED: Hydrogen fuel cell for mobile phones under development; Price of 3G USB dongles cut by 50 per cent; and much more..

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:59:50 -0400

> Hydrogen fuel cell for mobile phones under development. article

> Price of 3G USB dongles cut by 50 per cent. article

> Ubiquisys first to support 3G Femtocell standard. article

And finally... Are O2 and the BBC interested in Qualcomm's MediaFLO? article

KPN goes live with mobile TV, France issues licences

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:59:56 -0400

The Dutch cell phone operator KPN will launch its DVB-H mobile TV service on June 5th using handsets from LG and Samsung. The service, Europe's first to offer nationwide coverage, will begin with 10 channels including MTV, Discovery Channel and Nick Toons for €10 a month with more premium channels to come in the near future.

France, meanwhile, has taken a different approach and awarded mobile TV broadcast licences on a channel basis rather than issue a license for the service and let the service provider choose the channels. Applications came from 36 firms but only 13 licences were issued, with three being kept for public broadcasters France 2, France 3 and Arte.

The licences were issued on the basis that DVB-H was adopted, with two of the channels, Eurosport and Canal+, being subscription based. The regulator added that another 15 mobile TV licences could become available when analogue TV services move across to digital broadcasts.

For more on this story:
- read The Register

Related stories:
Qualcomm doubles MediaFlo TV spectrum in 28 markets. MediaFlo story
EU picks DVB-H, not MediaFlo. DVB-H story

Qualcomm follows Nokia into services arena

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:59:54 -0400

While not fully accepting that it was mimicking Nokia, Qualcomm executives have outlined plans for the company that will target increased revenues by working with operators at a data services and platform level.

Qualcomm grabbed the spotlight at its eighth annual BREW development conference to promote a vision for the wireless industry that expands beyond voice services into new business models, service offerings and markets. According to Qualcomm Internet Services VP and GM of BREW Bob Briggs, the initiative heralds the company's belief that widening its reach to embrace a more open and flexible approach promises to optimise growth throughout the mobile value chain, a point reiterated time and again in subsequent appearances by CEO Paul Jacobs and exec VP and group president Len Lauer.

For a viewpoint on the Nokia approach, the U.K.-based market research firm Ovum has taken a more in depth view into how this handset vendor is building a services strategy with Orange--albeit that Orange has stopped short of embracing Nokia's Ovi mobile Internet brand, even though many of the services it will be offering are included under the Ovi umbrella.

For more on this story:
- read Ovum and FierceMobileContent

Related stories:
Qualcomm goes with Plaza. Widget platform story
Qualcomm's BREW gets Flashy. BREW story

Qualcomm buys into femtocell developer

Thu, 22 May 2008 06:59:58 -0400

The burgeoning femtocell market has been given a significant boost following the decision by Qualcomm Ventures to acquire a shareholding in the U.K.-based developer ip.access.

This move by one of the technology giants in the wireless industry is being seen as validating the concept as well as ramping up the competitive stakes. "Having [Qualcomm's] weight behind us and behind femtocells is good," said Andy Tiller, VP of marketing at ip.access. "It's beginning to look like this market is about scale. We need big friends in that kind of market, and Qualcomm is one of those friends."

Also, for ip.access, the money Qualcomm is bringing is less interesting than the relationships and influence--especially with standards organisations--that it adds. Privately held, the company already lists Cisco, Intel Capital, ADC and Motorola Ventures among its owners.

The company presently uses chipsets from PicoChip in its Oyster 3G femtocell unit and is currently being trialed by several network operators worldwide. ip.access said it would continue to source silicon from PicoChip, and this would not change in the near term. "Certainly, Qualcomm is active in silicon development and in the future the femtocell market will require future iterations of silicon as the scale of the market increases--but it is not conditional in them investing in us," said Stephen Mallison, CEO of ip.access. "PicoChip is a great company with a great product."

For more on this story:
-read Mobile Europe, Ovum and Unstrung

Related stories
Rumor: ip.access wins femtocell deal with AT&T. ip.access story
T-Mobile invests in femtocell maker. T-Mobile story
Nokia Siemens and Pirelli to co-develop femtocells. NSN story

Qualcomm acquires U.K. spectrum - but what next?

Mon, 19 May 2008 06:59:57 -0400

Having won the auction for the U.K.-wide L-band spectrum auction, Qualcomm has been reluctant to define what it might be used for other than to 'explore emerging business models and advanced mobile technologies'.

Spending £8.3 million to win the spectrum right to the 1452 MHz to 1492 MHz band and competing against seven other hopefuls, Qualcomm claims the licence is suitable for offering mobile television, wireless broadband and satellite radio. The spectrum has been released on a technology and service neutral basis leaving Qualcomm and its partners free to decide what to do next. The frequency band is also available as of now.

Andrew Gilbert, an executive VP of Qualcomm, said: "Acquiring this spectrum will enable us to develop, test and explore a variety of innovative wireless services and technologies that will benefit European consumers and the wireless industry as a whole. The company has a long history of innovation and creating new technology markets."

Qualcomm also has a long history of wanting to establish a meaningful bridgehead into Europe, with mobile TV being one of its latest ambitions.

For more on this story:
-read CNNmoney

Related story:
Qualcomm doubles its U.S. mobile TV spectrum. Qualcomm mobile TV story.

ALSO NOTED: Customers rank Orange worst in poll;Nortel joins Qualcomm in opposition to LTE patent pool; and more...

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:59:50 -0400

> Customers rank Orange worst in poll. article

> Nortel joins Qualcomm in opposition to LTE patent pool. article

And finally... Nokia developing 'highest-ever' production value mobile game. article

Licence scheme for LTE agreed, but key suppliers absent

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:59:54 -0400

While those involved proudly announced they had agreed to only charge each other 'reasonable' licence fees for LTE patents, the accord was overshadowed by the absence of key players, such as Qualcomm and Interdigital.

The agreement, signed between Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, NextWave Wireless, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson, will see any royalties for LTE total less than 10 per cent of the resale price for handsets and less than US$10 for laptops. However, it is up to the companies involved to decide how this (up to) 10 per cent is split between them.

Even with this new LTE framework--labeled FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory), the history of such agreements is not good. Nokia and Qualcomm used to have a comprehensive patent relationship, before it broke down in a fit of litigation.

For more on this story:
- read The Register and Mobile Europe

Related stories:
Vodafone CEO: WiMAX has a home in LTE. Story on Vodafone
China Mobile joins Vodafone, Verizon in LTE trial. Story on LTE trials