Qualcomm Inc (QCOM)

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Qualcomm bridging the 2G divide
Zatni Arbi, Contributor, [e-mail]

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20041213.P01

Oops, there was "technical glitch" again last week. I wrote that the price of the new O2 Xda IIs was around 1,500 Singapore dollars (S$). I forgot to convert this figure into US dollars (US$). My editor must have thought I meant US$ instead of S$, so it appeared to be much more expensive than it actually is. I've been told that the price is around Rp 8.5 million on the local market.

Now that the error has been corrected, let me tell you why I'm very excited about the prospect of the people in this country having more access to the Internet.

Actually, I'm like a child impatiently waiting for his birthday to come. There are so many new and promising technologies around, and operators are conducting test runs of various wireless voice and data infrastructure -- GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, CDMA2000 1x EV-DO, among others. More importantly, the differences between the originally competing technologies are becoming blurred.

For example, the competition between the European GSM and American CDMA has often been overblown. It has, in fact, become irrelevant. It has been agreed that GSM will continue to dominate the market, while CDMA is the better choice for greenfield operators. However, what about operators who provide their subscribers with a choice of, say, GSM or CDMA? China Unicom is a good example.

I had the opportunity to be in Beijing last month to attend the biggest telecom exhibition in that burgeoning city. The trip also gave me the chance to catch up with what Qualcomm had been doing there. As you may recall, the San Diego-based Qualcomm is the company that has developed CDMA technology.

Some China Facts

First, let us have some statistics. There are more than 320 million cellphone users in China today, and according to Frank Meng, President of Qualcomm China, there are currently 26 million CDMA subscribers. This figure was achieved in less than three years, as CDMA made inroads into China in 2001.

The 320 million cellphone subscribers are served by two carriers -- China Unicom and China Mobile. While China Mobile focuses only on using GSM and GPRS networks, China Unicom uses both the GSM and the CDMA network. In fact, its CDMA network is projected to become the largest in the world.

Clearly, Qualcomm has seen a lot of opportunities in China. Not surprisingly, it has been working closely with Chinese carriers as well as device manufacturers. As Frank said, locally made handsets and devices enjoy tremendous popularity among the Chinese consumers. In addition, CDMA2000 products that are made in China are also exported to more than 30 other countries.

China has not issued a license for 3G, as it is still hoping that the locally developed TD-SCDMA technology will finally have a competitive advantage. The government seems to count on it to reduce dependence on outside technology and to support local industry.

The proposed 3G for CDMA is, of course, CDMA2000 1x EV-DO. According to Luis Pineda, Vice President, Marketing and Product Management, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, there are more than eight million users worldwide for the CDMA2000 1xEV-DO.

Devices and Chipsets

Oftentimes, the launch of a new technology fails to create the expected results as there are not enough products on the market to demonstrate its benefits. For Qualcomm's CDMA, that should not be the case. The company has been developing chipsets for handsets and other terminal devices for a long time.

For the 3G CDMA2000 1x EV-DO alone, more than 60 devices have been commercially introduced. They range from US$100 handsets to US$600 PDAs and PC Cards. The PC Cards can be used to enable PCs and PDAs to get connected to the Internet using the EV-DO network.

One of the key aspects of Qualcomm's business is the chipsets. It designs and manufactures highly integrated chipsets that serve as the brain for the CDMA devices, much like the Pentium processors inside a PC. Applications such as Position Location, Push to Talk (PTT), Video Monitoring, Multiplayer Gaming, Photo Sharing and e-mail guide the development of the chipsets.

Interestingly, although it is the main technology company behind CDMA, Qualcomm also works closely with UMTS (WCDMA) device makers. More than 25 device makers, including Samsung, Sanyo, LG, Huawei, ZTE and BenQ, use its chipsets.

Today, Qualcomm has chipsets with digital signal processing, integrated memory, video, audio and imaging capabilities that support both CDMA, GSM and GPRS. The result is a very highly integrated chipset. In contrast, using a non-integrated chipset will require the handset maker to use a separate chip for the camera, another chip for the audio player and another for 3D games. Thus, by using integrated chipsets, device makers can design smaller and less power hungry devices, reduce the cost of their products, and shorten their time-to-market.

GSM1x

In September, Qualcomm and China Unicom reported the successful first phase trial of GSM1x, a technology solution developed by Qualcomm.

In a nutshell, the solution allows GSM carriers to offer CDMA2000 1x voice, data and enhanced services using commercial CDMA radio frequency equipment without having the subscribers replacing their Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) with User Identification Modules (UIM). As we know, CDMA users need a UIM while GSM users need a SIM for authentication and roaming purposes.

In other words, with GSM1x, GSM operators can offer CDMA voice, data and enhanced services without having to replace their own back office for billing, etc. As part of the trial, a dual-mode handset that can switch from GSM to CDMA2000 1x was also used. The QTP6300 handset, a prototype made by Qualcomm, uses the MSM6300 chipset made by the same company and supports roaming between GSM and CDM2000 1x with a single UIM.

For some time, we have had handsets that can switch from GSM to CDMA, but they need both a SIM and a RUIM. With the new multi-mode technology, no more switching will be necessary. The same also happens on the provisioning side, where GSM operators can also provide CDMA services with the same back end infrastructure. So, you see, the gap between second generation GSM and CDMA2000 1x is finally disappearing.