Bullwinkle, You can not blame the slow uptake of 3G on the Manufacturers IMO. It only makes sense for the operators to leverage their existing infrastructure with minor upgrades to support the small wireless data market. Until demand for 3G data services materialize there won't be any widespread deployment of WCDMA in Europe and other parts. In short demand will drive the market, not the suppliers.
re:CDMA...Bullwinkle, I don't think at this point anyone is expecting some other company to "break away" and develop a new technology that is completely non-CDMA based. We already know that all 3G systems currently being deployed or being tested for deployment are CDMA based.
Yes, every company making anything CDMA related must "use" one or more QCOM patents. But like I said in my last post, QCOM will also have to use others' patents in the design of their own products. TI for example, won't have to pay QCOM anything for the design and sale of ICs, because they came to an agreement which allows each the full use of the others' patent portfolio...a perfect cross license if you will. But QCOM will get a royalty on the end sale of the product containing the IC. Again, QCOM signs a different agreement for each type of CDMA equipment, subscriber products, infrastructure, ASICs, etc...
And depending on what patents that particular manufacturer has related to what type of equipment, QCOM will be in a better or worse bargaining position. For example, let's say Company X has 10 patents related to how something operates in the RF section of CDMA phone, but they have 0 patents related to how the baseband processing in the modem (MSM) works, they cannot sign a cross licensing deal with QCOM related to ICs, because QCOM does not need to "use" X's patents in their IC design. And since QCOM doesn't make and sell phones, they obviously won't need to "use" X's patents related to the RF section of the phone. Where Company X will benefit is when all the other handset companies out there have their little piece of the CDMA patent pool, they can all cross license with each other allowing use of each others' patents in the design and sale of phones, reducing the cost for each to make the phones. But they'll still have to pay QCOM a royalty on the end sale of the product since QCOM owns the core CDMA patents which make any CDMA system work, things like power control methods as I mentioned in my last post. A company like NOK, who has many GSM patents (and I'm sure many W-CDMA as well) which QCOM needs, for QCOM to design and sell W-CDMA ICs, is in a better position than Company X. They can design their own CDMA ICs under the agreement with QCOM and not pay a royalty on them. But they still have to pay QCOM the royalty on the sale of the subscriber and infrastructure equipment.
If QCOM were selling subscriber and infrastructure equipment, they'd have to enter into many more of these cross-licensing agreements for the different types of equipment. As it stands, they only sell ICs, therefore that's where they get the least favorable agreements (where they essentially make no money until the end product is sold), in cross-license deals with people like TI and NOK who "own" many patents of their own that QCOM needs for the design and sale of their ICs.
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