Qualcomm pushes multicast CDMA
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The company behind most CDMA technology is now planning to go multicast in order to allow faster and more stable streaming content.
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SAN DIEGO, Oct. 12 -QUALCOMM Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM), pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology, today announced it has acquired Trigenix, a mobile user interface company, based in the United Kingdom.
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Qualcomm made a clear statement about its vision for future mobile devices on Monday by buying SoftMax, a provider of noise-reduction algorithms.SoftMax&#39;s technology works with multiple microphones to suppress background noise, separate the speaker&#39;s voice from that noise, and cancel echoes, all to make voice calls more intelligible. The battle for better sound was stepped up recently when Motorola delivered a system called CrystalTalk, with a similar aim, in its Razr2 line of phones.The SoftMax Signal Separation technology broadens Qualcomm&#39;s toolset for devices, including mobile phones, Bluetooth headsets, VoIP phones, and notebooks, according to a company statement. It consumes less battery life, processing power, and memory than alternatives, the company said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Qualcomm was not immediately able to provide more details of its plans for SoftMax.SoftMax already has deals with mobile operator SK Telecom and with communications chipmaker Broadcom, which is&#160;embroiled in a fierce legal battle with Qualcomm over various patents. Qualcomm may have acquired SoftMax as much for its engineers and intellectual property as for its current products, said analyst Will Strauss of Forward Concepts.Similarly,&#160;Qualcomm acquired wireless broadband vendor Flarion&#160;last year just for its team and OFDMA (orthogonal frequency-division multiplex access) technology, Strauss said. That company&#39;s intellectual property is expected to be valuable as OFDMA technologies including WiMax and&#160;LTE (Long-Term Evolution)&#160;become widely adopted. In addition, it would have been hard to simply recruit top-notch talent in a field as obscure as noise reduction, Strauss said. Qualcomm is probably looking both to integrate SoftMax&#39;s algorithms in its own single-chip systems for devices and to license them to other hardware vendors, Strauss said.Privately held SoftMax is based in Qualcomm&#39;s hometown of San Diego and was founded in 1998 by scientists from The Salk Institute and from the University of California at San Diego, where Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs is a former professor and endowed the Jacobs School of Engineering in 1997.
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Qualcomm Incorporated, pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology, on October 1 announced the opening of a research and development (R&amp;D) center in Hyderabad, India.
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(InfoWorld) - Qualcomm is offering mobile phone makers a choice of technologies to tune into mobile TV services. In addition to its MediaFlo broadcast system, the U.S. manufacturer unveiled the development of two new chips supporting alternative technologies at last week'sÂ 3GSM World CongressÂ in Barcelona. Qualcomm is pushing its own MediaFlo system as an alternative to the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) standard supported by Nokia and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, or the Japanese ISDB-T (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Terrestrial) system. But in Spain, it unveiled a "universal" chip that supports all three technologies. The company has also developed a new chip that supports Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS). This technology allows mobile phone network operators to offer streamed mobile TV services more efficiently by multicasting programs instead of having to establish point-to-point links for each device as they currently do. As a result, operators will be able to position their streaming services more competitively to meet future demands of mobile TV users during peak live TV broadcasts, such as sporting events and breaking news. "A big advantage of MBMS is that the technology will help operators better utilize their networks,' said Nitesh Patel, senior analyst with Strategy Analytics Ltd. But a drawback could be the lack of commitment by handset manufacturers to make phones, he added. A key focus of Qualcomm, however, is to establish its own MediaFlo as the technology of choice for operators entering the nascent market for mobile TV services, according to Andrew Gilbert, president of Qualcomm Europe. "Nokia and others are pushing hard for DVB-H to be the mobile TV standard in Europe but MediaFlo has some significant advantages," Gilbert said in an interview. The results of its trail with British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) indicate that MediaFlo would be able to cover either twice the geographical area per transmitter or deliver double the number of channels as DVB-H, according to Gilbert. And channel switching times are faster, he said. Under Qualcomm's patent licence policy technology, proprietary MediaFlo technology can be licensed for use in CDMA (Code Division Multiplex Access) and WCDMA (Wideband-CDMA) phones with no increase in the company's standard royalty rate for these handsets. MediaFlo technology will run on any spectrum that national regulators make available to mobile TV services, according to Gilbert. If regulators initially showed more support for DVB-H, "they are more neutral today" and willing to consider alternative technologies such as MediaFlo, he said. Gilbert ruled out the DMB (Digital Media Broadcasting) standard as a viable alternative, pointing to its limited bandwidth capability. Some analysts agree. "Of the mobile TV standards out there, DMB is the weakest primarily because of its limited bandwidth, which reduces the number of channels and picture quality," Patel said. Unlike MediaFlo and DVB-H, however, the DMB standard uses spectrum currently available in numerous European markets. As such, it is enjoying a head-start advantage in countries like Germany, which issued DMB licenses prior to the World Cup soccer tournament last year. The German regulator has yet to set a time-frame for DVB-H. Momentum for MediaFlo is growing: On Feb. 12, the biggest U.S. cellular company, AT&T's Cingular division, announcedÂ plans to launch a mobile TV serviceÂ using MediaFlo technology later this year. Verizon Wireless, the country's second-largest mobile operator by subscribers, has already committed to using MediaFlo, with plans to offer commercial service in March. Â
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Boca Raton-based Siemens Communications said Cingular Wireless has chosen it to help with the mobile phone company&#39;s nationwide deployment of a true third generation (3G) high-speed universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) network.
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The dedicated tower network to be built by Qualcomm&#39;s MediaFLO USA subsidiary should give US carriers a smooth road for rolling out mobile multimedia services, though it may be some time before they embrace the idea.
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By Kathryn Balint, The San Diego Union-Tribune  Sep. 10--Executives at San Diego-based Qualcomm these days are sounding  more like TV moguls than makers of wireless technology as they approach the  launch of an $800 million, nationwide network to deliver television to cell  phones.
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SAN DIEGO, Feb. 8  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- QUALCOMM Incorporated , together with Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., today announced that the world's first demonstration of Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) mobile TV technology will be at 3GSM World Congress 2007 in Barcelona, Spain.
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LG&#39;s DMB-receiving System-on-Chip lets users watch terrestrial broadcasts while talking on the phone. LG plans to use its terrestrial DMB phone technologies in an aggressive campaign to penetrate the global
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Cell phone chip maker Qualcomm and  memory chip maker Spansion Inc. announced a partnership on  Tuesday to make cheaper sets of semiconductors that will help  reduce the cost of affordable phones for CDMA networks for  emerging markets by as much as 25 percent in 2007.
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InfoWorld - Qualcomm is offering mobile phone makers a choice of technologies to tune into mobile TV services. In addition to its MediaFlo broadcast system, the U.S. manufacturer unveiled the development of two new chips supporting alternative technologies at last week&#39;s&#160;3GSM World Congress&#160;in Barcelona.
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A new chipset from Qualcomm called Gobi promises WAN wireless connections to laptop users globally.
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Qualcomm Inc. on Friday raised its quarterly profit forecast due to strong demand for its mobile phone technology. The San Diego company said it expects earnings per
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Blog: Dual-mode Wi-Fi and cellular services could make it big this summer as Cincinnati Bell Wireless and T-Mobile both launch new services.
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New 'Turbo-3G' HSPA mobile services from AT&T Wireless and 3 Sweden feature fast upload speeds.
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WAYNE, NJ - Qualcomm has inked a licensing agreement with Microsoft, under which Qualcomm will integrate Microsoft&#39;s Windows Media Audio and Video codecs into its Qtv video decoder solution.