Tightening Broadcom and Verizon’s business relationship was among reasons that Broadcom signed a licensing deal that excused the Bell from the International Trade Commission’s Qualcomm chip ban, Broadcom Chief Financial Officer Eric Brandt said Tuesday at the Citigroup Global Technology Conference, webcast from New York. Verizon is a “fairly large” Broadcom customer and an “important provider” in the wireless market, he said. The licensing deal gave Broadcom “meaningful economics,” but it was more about developing a better business relationship and future opportunities, he said. Broadcom still is mulling how to deal with Qualcomm, he said. “We need to make sure we do what’s right for our shareholders,” he said. Broadcom hopes to achieve “peace in our lifetime” with Qualcomm, but wants to make sure the legal playing field is level, he said. Broadcom doesn’t want to be in a “position where [its] chips are licensed but customers aren’t,” he said.
Broadband over powerline chipmaker Intellon said DirecTV will use its HomePlug 1.0 chips to provide video on demand beginning this fall. Satellite customers signing up for the new service will get a HomePlug powerline-to-Ethernet adapter letting them connect to the Internet for DirecTV content downloading using existing home wiring, Intellon said.
Garmin chose STMicroelectronics’ Teseo GPS chip for Garmin personal navigation devices, said Domenico Rossi, general manager of ST’s Car Radio and Multimedia Division. Since PNDs often suffer from the “shield effect” from the car windshield, ST’s improves tracking and shortens GPS signal acquisition times, ST said. “A ‘warm start’ -- the acquisition of accurate time, satellite positioning and velocity (ephemeris) data that have been lost during the switch-off -- takes less than 34 seconds,” ST said. The new chip can also support satellite-based augmentation systems such as Wide Area Augmentation System and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, and it’s compatible with the planned Galileo system, ST said.
Qualcomm paid a lobbyist $740,000 to push the company’s side on the International Trade Commission’s chipset ban in the first half of 2007, nearly twice the amount it spent all last year, an Aug. 7 federal disclosure form said. Qualcomm paid Covington & Burling to lobby the House, the Senate, the White House, the Transportation Department and the U.S. Trade Representative on the ITC decision regarding Qualcomm’s patent dispute with Broadcom. It also paid the firm to lobby on telecom and patent reform legislation. In 2006, Qualcomm paid Covington $400,000 -- $160,000 in the first half, $240,000 in the second. That money went toward lobbying on telecom and patent reform legislation, as well as “communications issues generally.” Qualcomm’s 2007 efforts haven’t brought about a reversal of the ITC’s decision to block importation of Qualcomm chips held to infringe Broadcom patents.
The FCC should embrace a hybrid tack on E-911 location technology, combining the benefits of network- and handset- based technologies, to get truly improved accuracy, Polaris Wireless and TruePosition told the agency in comments. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin noted a hybrid solution’s potential when the FCC sought comments on making wireless and VoIP E- 911 more accurate in a rulemaking notice approved in June.
NextWave Broadband said Monday it had started shipping its NW1000 Series WiMAX chipset. It’s made up of the NW1100 baseband system-on-a-chip, matched NW1200 multi-band RFIC and associated system software. The chipset gives manufacturers a platform to develop WiMAX mobile terminal products on and is part of a family of WiMAX chipsets under development at NextWave, it said. The NW1000 Series supports 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.4 to 3.8 GHz spectrum. The chipset is based on the IEEE 802.16e standard, supports PCI and SPI host interfaces, has an RF-baseband interface and uses RFIC architecture.
TV programmers’ tactic of running racier material online than on TV drew fire from Parents TV Council. The group cited Viacom’s Comedy Central for its unexpurgated streaming of a “roast” of Flava Flav, the ex-rapper turned reality TV star. On Comedy Central at 10 p.m. Aug. 13, the show was shorn of obscenities, though later that night it ran again unedited. By putting the unedited version online, too, “Comedy Central has done an end run on parents,” PTC President Tim Winter said. “Comedy Central should make Web viewers prove their age with an age verification system.” Streamed material evades the V-chip content blocking tool that the industry touts as a success, undermining its usefulness, Winter said. Other networks have used the Web to stream uncensored material. NBC Universal posted a Saturday Night Live short featuring a mock video for a song parody, “Dick in a Box.” When the skit was broadcast on national TV, the word “dick” was removed.
Unwilling to let Qualcomm’s harried attorneys rest, Nokia complained to the U.S. International Trade Commission that Qualcomm committed unfair trade practices by infringing five Nokia patents in its CDMA and WCDMA/GSM chipsets, it said Friday. Nokia wants an ITC ban on import of the chipsets and devices using them, as occurred with Qualcomm chips infringing Broadcom patents. The Thursday filing came the same week a federal judge in Santa Ana, Calif., ordered Qualcomm to pay Broadcom double damages and attorney’s fees (CD Aug 15 p10) and less than two weeks after the president declined to veto the ITC ban (CD Aug 7 p3) and a San Diego judge ruled against Qualcomm in a separate Broadcom patent dispute (CD Aug 8 p6).
Sprint Nextel branded and described its WiMAX strategy Thursday at the Sprint Ahead Technology Summit in Vienna, Va. Called Xohm, Sprint’s WiMAX service will follow a business plan based on embedded devices, partnerships and existing 2.5 GHz spectrum, company executives said. Sprint also detailed Nextel Direct Connect, a new CDMA-based push-to-talk service.
“America is better served” if coupon-eligible DTV converter boxes are required to have V-chip functionality built in “rather than simply passing through the information” to the analog TV set, the Coalition for Independent Ratings Services told the NTIA. Its letter dated July 10 was released recently as part of an ex parte filing the Coalition made at the FCC. If pass-through disables V-chip functionality in the analog set, that would violate FCC rules, the Coalition said. “Having the subsidized set-top boxes perform the V-chip functionality will provide V-chip to analog TVs manufactured before 2000, providing universal coverage for the first time,” it told NTIA. “Moreover, V- chip functionality in the set-top boxes will be less confusing for consumers should new ratings be introduced.” NTIA rules go no further than requiring the boxes to be FCC- compliant on parental controls, an NTIA spokesman said.