Dennis Ferguson wrote:

> It is the case that, while the USA managed to bully CDMA2000 through
> the ITU as a second 3G phone international "standard", IS-95/CDMA2000 is
> actually the proprietary technology of a single company to an extent
> that makes GSM and WCDMA (which have their own IPR problems) look quite
> free and open, relatively speaking.

Well GSM anyway. W-CDMA is still CDMA, and Qualcomm still gets royalties.

CDMA was the perfect technology for the U.S., where spectrum efficiency
was of paramount importance, and where the longer range of CDMA made it
more suitable for eventual replacement of rural AMPS. This is why CDMA
continues to be the dominant technology in the U.S. and why it continues
to gain market share (though with Sprint's declining fortunes, I think
that CDMA's market share will begin to stabilize and not keep going up).

It has less advantages in densely populated countries, such as most of
Western Europe, where spectrum was not as limited, and where longer
range is not as much of an issue.

But yes, Nokia, and other phone manufacturers despise Qualcomm, much as
memory manufacturers despise Rambus. In Qualcomm's case, their patents
are ironclad, unlike Rambus's patents.