Development History of CDMA

hkn

Development History of CDMA [Copy link]

Where will the expanding CDMA go?

2006-7-19

CDMA is a miracle. As a late-developing technology, CDMA successfully broke the monolith of GSM in less than 20 years and gained more and more market share from emerging markets and emerging operators. However, with the gradual expansion of Qualcomm, the promoter of CDMA, and CDMA operators, the contradictions hidden by the original sharing of hardships have become more and more serious and gradually exposed. Where is the expanded CDMA going? Recently

　　, there has been a lot of negative news about CDMA. First, Qualcomm refused to reduce patent fees, and Reliance, the second largest operator in India, publicly stated that it would build a GSM network; then Vivo Participacoes, a CDMA service provider in Brazil, also proposed to provide GSM services; and in South Korea, the base of CDMA, LG Telecom has repeatedly postponed the construction of the network after applying for the CDMA2000 license, and has almost given up.

　　All the criticisms are directed at Qualcomm's patent policy, either accusing it of being too high and discriminatory, or accusing it of being monopolistic and closed. However, Qualcomm's patent policy has been established since the company was founded and has become Qualcomm's DNA. Why were these operators able to accept this so-called "unfair" policy in the early days, but could not accept it after they really had a certain market share?

　　This requires looking at the history of CDMA.

　　The timing of CDMA's emergence seemed very bad at the time. In October 1988, Qualcomm first proposed the concept of CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) for cellular communications' existing FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access) and TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access). But in January 1989, TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association) voted for TDMA for the cellular system, which was a technology familiar to most telecommunications manufacturers in the world at the time. With the standard set, the telecommunications industry quickly turned its attention to TDMA, which was tantamount to sentencing CDMA to death. The GSM that emerged later was a standard that used TDMA technology. It was precisely because of this that Qualcomm was the only one promoting CDMA in the early days, which also led to Qualcomm's dominance in patents later.

　　However, CDMA has indeed made some breakthroughs compared with previous technologies. The founder of Qualcomm saw the special ability of CDMA, which originated from the military's confidential communication technology, to expand network capacity, which hit the lifeline that operators urgently needed to solve. But CDMA has no precedent for successful commercial use. The mainstream operators in the market are unwilling to take risks, while emerging operators use it as a means of competition.

　　In emerging markets such as South Korea, domestic companies have little share in the telecommunications market, and adopting CDMA may gain a leading advantage. In 1991, South Korea and Qualcomm signed a joint development agreement, under which Korean manufacturers can fully enter Qualcomm's intellectual property library and obtain technical support. 20% of Qualcomm's patent fees are also required to be provided to the Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute for further research.

　　With the development of emerging operators and emerging markets, CDMA challengers have gradually become monopolists. For example, Reliance has accounted for 19.5% of the Indian market, only two percentage points lower than the first operator, and South Korea has also become a telecommunications power. Qualcomm has also grown from a 7-person workshop to a Fortune 500 company.

　　When the problem of survival is no longer a concern, how to make more profits has become their top priority. After the war against GSM, Qualcomm and its partners started a civil war over the division of the fruits of victory, with the focus on the proportion of patent fees. The recent negative news is a concentrated outbreak.

　　Historically, the success of CDMA is not only technical, nor is it just the wisdom of the old Jacob tribe, but more importantly, the spirit of rebirth and the unique market opportunity. Qualcomm and CDMA operators should continue to cooperate and learn how to consolidate and develop a larger market, instead of rushing to share the fruits of victory when CDMA is out of danger and has a firm foothold, which may push CDMA into another danger.