Qualcomm Inc (QCOM)

[sbono13]

As mentioned before, the only sensible competition for this would be for AWS, T-Mobile, Cingular (any one or combination) to buy Nextwave (or at least sign a contract, and try to make it exclusive) and share it for implementing GSM1x -- this is the only sensible migration to 3G I can think of.

IMHO, I don't see why aws/tmobile/cingular or even sprint/verizon would even bother upgrading to true 3G (not counting 1X as 3G) themselves if they could lease parts of nextwave's DO network if and when necessary. They would just suddenly start offering wireless broadband services to their data-hungry customers, and sell them multimode handsets that roam onto nextwave without said customers ever knowing. The irony of that arrangement is that the GSM operators can continue to use GSM indefinitely for the majority of customers that are voice-only and never upgrade to wCDMA (or GSM1X for that matter). Nextwave may provide indefinite life support to GSM/iDEN/TDMA operators, who otherwise would have been forced to migrate to some form of CDMA voice+data to be able to offer competitive data packages. QCOM's revenues from those operators will be forever restricted to handsets bought by data-hungry customers, which will always make up a small subset of the wireless market. This will prevent QCOM from ever approaching 100% market share for all wireless handsets. All MHO.

Of course, ATTWS is required to build out wCDMA or face repayment of DOCOMO's investment. Pick your poison i guess.