Qualcomm must license modem tech to rivals like Intel, court rules

Qualcomm reached a settlement with Taiwanese antitrust regulators, avoiding a $773 million fine in exchange for paying $93 million and investing $700 million in the country over the course of five years.
Ugh, this is so short sighted. Nation states should force QCOM to license their SEP at FRAND rates based on the cost of the modem. Make it as cheap as possible. This makes the most economic sense for a place like Taiwan as everyone and their couch surfing amateur OEM will be able to put LTE modems into their devices. This means more business for TSMC, more business for OEMs, more business for carriers, so on and so forth. Commoditizing modems enables more. Instead, they go for a pittance and let QCOM use their SEP rate practices go on.

Dollars to donuts, Apple will have their own Apple design cellular modem hardware, on a separate chip or right into the SoC die. Driving licensing rates for SEP to costs of the components is a big deal for them.

I really hope they resolve this quickly, because based on my owning every model of iPhone from 2007 to the Max, there’s no question that the QUALCOMM modem is far superior to the Intel version. I  was so fortunate to have QUALCOMM modems in my iPhones right up through iPhone X.  As much as I love my Max,  I’m very disappointed with the quality of the Intel modem. Apple, are you listening? 

Qualcomm is one of my least favorite tech companies. They really seem one step above a patent troll. For those who are all screaming about Qualcomm making better modems, hate to tell you it's one element in a complicated system. Not that big ideal. But them using this to force purchases of their other devices ETC is the problem. They really should do something else worthwhile. 

bluefire1 said:

there’s no question that the QUALCOMM modem is far superior to the Intel version. I was so fortunate to have QUALCOMM modems in my iPhones right up through iPhone X.

I’m calling BS on this. “Far” superior? Show me some independent testing that confirms this. Also, Qualcomm isn’t an acronym. Finally, you’ve owned every single model of iPhone from the original to the Max? Yeah, you’re either a QCOM employee or just trolling.

bluefire1 said:

I really hope they resolve this quickly, because based on my owning every model of iPhone from 2007 to the Max, there’s no question that the QUALCOMM modem is far superior to the Intel version. I  was so fortunate to have QUALCOMM modems in my iPhones right up through iPhone X.  As much as I love my Max,  I’m very disappointed with the quality of the Intel modem. Apple, are you listening? 

Nonsense.  While from a pure technical standpoint, one could make the argument that Qualcomm is ahead of the game, but from the end-user's perception... there is little to ZERO difference in real-world performance.  This has already be discussed.

I don't care how "fast" QC's modems are since the infrastructure is not there and won't be for at least a couple more years.  Quite making stuff up.