Qualcomm
in China
Wang Jing: Mr. Meng, thank you to take time to accept the
forum interview. Qualcomm is one of the founding members
and is among the most active members of the TD Forum. Every
time, there are always a large number of Qualcomm personnel
attending the events held by the Forum, paying special attention
of various aspects of the topic. Today, I am delighted to
have the opportunity to talk with you about several relative
issues.
First of all, I notice that there have been a series of
news indicating that your company¡¯s achievement in China
is on an ascending trend. Would you like to introduce the
general conditions of Qualcomm Inc. and Qualcomm in China?
Frank Meng: Thank you Dr. Wang. It¡¯s my pleasure to have
such an opportunity. We find that the series of the interviews
held by the forum did a lot to increase the influence of
the TD-SCDMA Forum in and out of this industry. And since
the forum is a place for us to exchange ideas and views
as you just mentioned, we are happy to support it.
In the aspect of Qualcomm Inc., from our newly released
Annual Report of 2007, we can find that our revenue in 2007
increased in comparison with that of last fiscal year, reaching
8.87 billion dollars. The chip and other operations have
grown by a large scale and the number of chip output has
reached more than 0.25 billion. The growth of Qualcomm¡¯s
business, on the one hand is a result of the growth of the
global mobile communications market, and on the other hand
is due to the transformation of the global mobile communications
from the 2nd generation to the 3rd, in which the transition
from 2G to 3G is accelerated. Especially, as the EV-DO and
HSDPA is getting mature, the steps of network transformation
is quickened, which lays an obvious and favorable effect
on the growth of Qualcomm¡¯s business. We had surpassed TI
(Texas Instruments), becoming the world¡¯s largest wireless
communication chip manufacturer in two successive quarters,
Q1 and Q2 of this year. It is well known that Qualcomm has
always been the largest fabless semiconductor company all
over the world, but the revenue of a fabless semiconductor
company is still much less than that of a company that has
a fab. We successfully became the world¡¯s 9th largest semiconductor
manufacturer in Q2 this year, being the only fabless company
in the top 10, which is an evidence of our growth in the
semiconductor-producing field.
And in the other aspect, I find our achievements in China
very encouraging. In the past few years, Qualcomm¡¯s achievements
in China have been growing by year. In the 2005 fiscal year,
our revenue in China accounted for 11% of the company¡¯s
total revenue, and last year, the number was 17%, and in
the 2007 fiscal year, the number reached 21%. It shows that
the growth of Qualcomm is greater than the average growth
in the global wireless communication field, and that of
Qualcomm¡¯s business in China is higher than that of Qualcomm
as a whole. Therefore, I¡¯d like to conclude that the high
growth speed is a result of Qualcomm¡¯s business model and
our leading technologies, as well as the successful cooperation
between Qualcomm and Chinese companies. We work together
to create values.
Wang Jing: At present, the global communication industry
as a whole is in recession, especially in China, but the
achievements of Qualcomm Inc. is growing by year, and its
large-scale growth in China is very surprising. Would you
like to introduce the percentages of 2G and 3G operations
in the aspect of chips?
Frank Meng: Basically, we have no 2G chips, only 3G chips,
that is, CDMA2000 and WCDMA. And we no longer produce the
old IS95 chips. Now, we only have 3G chips.
Wang Jing: Then, what are the percentages of WCDMA and CDMA2000?
Frank Meng: I have no separated figures to share with you.
What I can tell you is that the global market of WCDMA came
into being in 2004, and by the year of 2006, after the HSDPA
became popular, we found its growth was accelerating; and
there are over 400 million users all over the world. I think
both fields are growing very fast.
? Step in, Step out and Step up
Wang Jing: Your business in China is mainly
to provide chips for the Chinese market. And the mobile
phone manufactures not only sell in China, but also to other
markets.
Frank Meng: In China itself, there is neither WCDMA nor
EV-DO operator. The terminal products produced by China¡¯s
companies in cooperation with Qualcomm are mostly exported.
Wang Jing: How do you help them?
Frank Meng: We are cooperating in many aspects. Qualcomm
has many offices in most of the markets of the world, and
has very good cooperative relations with the global operators,
including CDMA2000 and WCDMA. We have a good understanding
of the demands of the operators to the terminals, and their
long-term planning. And we have close cooperation with Chinese
companies both technologically and in marketing.
Wang Jing: So you have the idea of ¡°Step in, Step out and
Step up¡±?
Frank Meng: I think this idea can vividly describe the results
of our communication with Chinese companies in the past
5 or 6 years. In recent years, with China¡¯s entry into WTO
and the integration of global economy, the simplest way
to make business is to step out - for cooperating companies,
is to export the terminals to the other countries. On the
other hand, from our understanding of the entire global
market, we think that the Chinese companies should step
up in terms of technology to realize their potentials, instead
of confining their roles as the world¡¯s processing factories
to produce and process some low-level products. They should
stand on a high level from the very first step, targeting
at the world¡¯s mainstream communication markets, for example,
Europe and the United States. They should step up to advance
technologically, and step into the mainstream markets in
Europe and the United States.
Wang Jing: MediaTek is the largest company in China¡¯s GSM
chip market, and Qualcomm is the top company in China¡¯s
CDMA chip market.
Frank Meng: Yes.
? Fabless Business Model
Wang Jing: We find that the business model
of Qualcomm is very special. First of all, Qualcomm is a
fabless company, and your major businesses are chip and
IPR.
Frank Meng: Our chip revenue accounts for about 60% of our
general revenue, and that of IPR accounts for about 30%.
Wang Jing: Such composition of products is unique among
the top companies of the world.
Frank Meng: Yes.
Wang Jing: That¡¯s why our business model is so widely talked
about. I can be a little straightforward in raising the
following questions. If we compare CDMA with WCDMA, and
compare the previous CDMA IS95 with GSM, we shall find that
the percentages of CDMA and GSM are extreme imbalanced.
And it is the same case in China that the number of GSM
users and that of CDMA differ to a very large extent. According
to the outsiders¡¯ information, this imbalance is related
to Qualcomm¡¯s IPR strategy. Would you like to comment?
Frank Meng: I believe that the emergence of this phenomenon
is mainly resulted from the market politico-economic structure.
There is no denying that the time of CDMA entering the market
is later than GSM, and that¡¯s why we have been always emphasizing
the importance of the time to enter a market. GSM entered
the market earlier than CDMA, and usually the earliest entered
technology takes monopoly in the communication industry
because it is hard for a subsequent technology to squeeze
in.
Besides, the big political environment in Europe is to expand
the Union, and before that, i.e., in the late 1980s, the
Europe is separated on the aspect of telecom, and GSM is
used to unify Europe¡¯s second generation mobile phones.
And the Europe had another rule, which is wrong from the
perspective of technology neutrality, to bind spectrum with
operators, as a result of which, the European operators
could apply no technology but GSM.
In Asia, all the countries but Japan adopted the technologies
of the United States or Europe. Since GSM was one step ahead
of CDMA, most of the Asian markets adopted GSM, the earliest
taking the most. In the early and middle 1990s, the world¡¯s
mobile communication market structure was different from
now. At that time, each market only had one or two state-owned
operators. It was not until the telecom reforms in the late
1990s that many markets began to have different operators
in the process of enterprise privatization. But, at that
time, so long as one or two state-owned operators in a market
adopted GSM, there would be some barriers for CDMA to enter.
Due to various reasons, GSM began to enter China only from
the middle of 1990s, and the service of CDMA was not opened
until January 8th, 2002. And this time gap laid a significant
unfavorable impact on the popularization of CDMA. From this
view the imbalance of percentages in fact has not much to
do with Qualcomm¡¯s business model. It is a result of the
much bigger global politico-economic system. I have a good
example for this. It is usually said that CDMA is from the
United States, and the United States shall adopt CDMA all
over the country. But in fact, it is misleading. The United
States is open to all technologies, and in its market, CDMA2000
and WCDMA take approximately same percentage, each takes
half of the cake. I believe that it is a result of free
market and the operators¡¯ freedom to choose their technologies.
Therefore, we cannot jump to the conclusion that it is Qualcomm¡¯s
model or someone else¡¯s model that lead to this result.
I think they are both good technologies, and should adequately
compete in the markets. And all the operators should pursue
their differentiated services and their own values.
Wang Jing: It is really the case in the United States. And
Verizon now has about 50 to 60 million users, and it is
a CDMA operator.
Frank Meng: It is the world¡¯s largest CDMA operator, having
over 60 million users.
? TD-SCDMA has Unique 3G Characteristics
Which shall be Further Improved in the Market
Wang Jing: Qualcomm joined TD Forum from
the very beginning, and paid constant attention to it. Now,
TD develops to be such a significant scale, I¡¯d like to
know Qualcomm¡¯s general evaluation of TD, in terms of technology,
market future, and why China did this, and what¡¯s your understanding.
Besides, would you like to elaborate on the plans of Qualcomm
for the next year?
Frank Meng: TD-SCDMA is one of the three 3G standards accepted
by ITU, and from the very beginning, Qualcomm has been paying
much attention to this technology, and that¡¯s why we joined
the forum when it was just established, becoming one of
the founding members. In the past few years, we actively
participated in its conferences and various activities.
In our minds, TD-SCDMA is a 3G standard passed by ITU, which
is based on CDMA technology. Qualcomm, as a promoter of
CDMA technology, will play an active role in driving the
global development of TD-SCDMA technology, and we hope it
will be put into market as soon as possible.
In addition, compared with other 3G technologies, TD-SCDMA
has very unique characteristics. There are three most frequently
mentioned technologies, CDMA2000, WCDMA and TD-SCDMA, among
which, CDMA2000 and WCDMA both belong to FDD technology,
and so when they are adopted, there must be frequencies
in symmetry.
Frequency is a scare resource in the globe, and we usually
compare frequency to real estate in the air. Once used,
it will be gone. However, there are still many irregular
frequencies, even large blocks of frequency bands. They
are not in symmetry and can by used with the TDD technology.
And in the three 3G technology standards, TD-SCDMA is the
only one of TDD system.
Frequency spectrum is like the land in a city, and technology
is like the construction materials for buildings. And the
task of the present industry is how to set up the building.
Throughout the world, the TDD frequency is not well used.
Therefore, we believe that TDD technology is very promising,
and we hope that TD-SCDMA will be put into use very soon.
That is why we are concerned with its progress and future
industrialization.
And in Qualcomm, we have been focusing on researching different
technologies of TDD, and we are especially paying attention
to the progress of the TD-SCDMA industry and the evolution
of the technology. However, up to now, we have not been
involved in producing TD-SCDMA chips, but only concern ourselves
with the trend of the commercialization of the entire industry.
In recent years, throughout the world, both CDMA2000 and
WCDMA have been developing very rapidly. And for each company
we shall invest a large amount of resources. To add the
investment on another technology on the basis of the investment
on the current one will be a great challenge to the companies.
Qualcomm has always been attaching great importance to technology
investment. Our annual researching investment accounts for
about 20% of our operating revenue, and in the 2007 fiscal
year, the number amounted to 21%. This is a giant investment,
and as to some technologies, what we did most is to pre-participate
in or to observe, and will not decide the entry time and
methods until the timing is appropriate.
Wang Jing: Most international companies take such steps
because there is much work to do before taking the decision.
But Qualcomm has been researching TD for a very long time,
have you come to a certain conclusive idea about TD in terms
of technology? Is there any problem with the technology
itself? Is there any problem in networking?
Frank Meng: There is no problem in this issue. Many companies
have participated in the researches of TD-SCDMA. So have
Qualcomm. If it is technologically subversive, the insiders
of this industry will have discovered it long before. I
don¡¯t think there is subversive reason to say TD is technologically
awkward so that it cannot be used.
Wang Jing: We insiders also agree with this conclusion.
But it is proclaimed by you, it shall have greater significance.
Frank Meng: (Laugh) Our view about it is very like the early
judgment on WCDMA. It needs all the participants inside
the industry to spend more time to make researches, and
it needs market for us to find and settle problems because
many problems cannot be found until the network is employed
and various terminals are put into use, for example, the
problem of inter-connection between different terminals
and network systems.
As we people in the circle of technology know, standard
is one thing, and the actual product is another. So, only
in the end can we find whether all the terminals and systems
can be inter-connected. Many problems can only be discovered
in practice. Just like WCDMA in its early stage, TD-SCDMA
also needs a process to be improved.
Wang Jing: Now, I want to express some of my personal views.
From the promulgation of the stand to the testing and to
today¡¯s state, the actual research and development of TD-SCDMA
products only began from 2002~2003. Up to now, it is only
4 to 5 years, and the learning curve is rather short. And
the present participants of the system and the chips are
still mainly some domestic enterprises. And the foreign
companies mostly enter in the form of joint venture. Therefore,
it is good to arrive at the current state.
Although TD-SCDMA is an international standard, its market
is bound to be firstly flourish in China. But if this market
is to be expanded, I think it is better to cooperate with
world first-class producers, just as in the case of WCDMA
and CDMA2000.
Frank Meng: All the communication products have network
effects. Usually the network means a large global market.
With a large network, it will be good to attract the producers
to invest in and to expand the technology rapidly.
Wang Jing: At present, such world top mobile phone producers
as Nokia and Motorola have different degrees of TD-SCDMA
research and development plans. Qualcomm is a company beginning
from IS95, and CDMA is of course critical for you. And meanwhile,
you did well in WCDMA chips. And I want to know, from the
perspective of market, whether you will get your hand on
other technologies, and do you have any plan to research
and develop TD?
Frank Meng: As I just mentioned, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and CDMA2000
are three different 3G standards, and among these technologies,
there are many differences, as well as things in common.
Qualcomm began to research and explore CDMA technology from
the early 1990s, and we have plenty of experience in it.
If we decide to shift from one technology to another, we
can do it very rapidly. Besides, as a chip producer focusing
on mobile communications, we have laid a firm foundation
in CDMA2000, including chip construction and the platform
concept. Therefore, I am confident that once we decide to
have other new technology, we will get command of it very
soon, due to our rich technological accumulation.
Wang Jing: You have another advantage in the development
of service platform. The major difference between 3G and
2G chips is that the 3G chips undertake too many services,
and therefore, it is not like 2G chips to well prepare everything
for the mobile phone producers. If you make 3G chips, you
must share the cake with the mobile phone producers, and
you have to reserve an interface with adequate platform
for them to do their job. Qualcomm has the famous BREW platform.
Is it the kind of application platform?
Frank Meng: Yes, it is an application platform on the chip¡¯s
software structure.
Wang Jing: Is it built-in?
Frank Meng: It is integrated in the chips. Maybe you won¡¯t
use the functions; it is still made to be compatible with
various technologies for different mobile phone producers
to share.
Wang Jing: Is it interoperable between WCDMA and CDMA?
Frank Meng: Theoretically yes.
Wang Jing: Where does this product used at present?
Frank Meng: It is mainly used in CDMA.
? 3G Application is the Combination of
Mobility and Broad-band Internet
Wang Jing: If TD continues to develop,
how should it develop these applications?
Frank Meng: The difference of CDMA2000, WCDMA and TD-SCDMA
lies in their air interface technologies. But their services
provided for the users are basically the same.
Wang Jing: Right. The users do not understand the air interface,
and they only want their mobile telephones to be good-looking,
and have a full range of functions and applications, and
containing meaningful information. Compared with the system,
our TD mobile phones and their applications develop slowly
due to the complexity of the 3G technology. As you just
mentioned, the transmitting speed of 3D system is low some
time before, but only when there comes the real high-speed
data, like EV-DO of CDMA2000 and HSDPA of WCDMA, which enables
the speed to reach 1M/s, will there be the demand in the
market. Otherwise, the speed of 384K/s can never meet the
operational demands.
Frank Meng: The transmitting speed will directly affect
the user experience. From the perspective of consumers,
3G is the combination of mobility and broad-band internet.
The new experience brought by CDMA2000 and WCDMA for users
is surfing on the internet, but if the users find the speed
is something like dial-up, they will not use it at all.
Only after CDMA2000 is updated to EV-DO, and WCDMA to HSDPA,
when the users find that it is just like go surfing on the
broad-band internet at home, can they come to accept it.
I myself am a good example. In the past, when we go to the
US on business, we had to use the broad-band connection
in the hotels. Only so, can we connect with the outside
world. Since there is EV-DO, we don¡¯t have to look for hotspots
all over the place. And at that time, we find 3G is really
useful.
Wang Jing: I think wireless surfing card is the most direct
application of 3G, which is very promising. What is the
average speed of EV-DO in the network of the United States?
Frank Meng: It reached 700 to 800K/s according to my own
experience.
Wang Jing: So fast? It was only 30-40K when I used IS95
in Dallas.
Frank Meng: EV-DO, just as the broad-band connection in
your home, can provide you with very good experience. Back
in the year of 2003 and 2004, most of the media and market
researchers in China declared that the 3G of the United
States was much inferior to that of Europe, and some even
believed this is due to the fact that the United States
used CDMA2000. But you can see when the US operators have
EV-DO, the speed of network construction is very quick.
The uploading speed of the present EV-DO (having updated
to A version) is also very fast, so it is popular for the
Americans to use and enjoy 3G. And this, in turn, drives
the WCDMA operators to accelerate their network construction,
which will in turn provide even better services for the
users. I think the United States is the best market where
WCDMA and CDMA2000 are used.
Wang Jing: The United States is strongly inclusive, having
all the different technologies. And China Telecom declared
to use HSDPA next year. It seems that it will go with the
trend.
? TD Adopts the Operator Tailoring System,
which can Standardize the Market and its Application
Wang Jing: The number of CDMA mobile phones
is much less than that of GSM phones, in term of design,
style and quantity. There are many Chinese mobile phone
producers in our forum. When talking about 3G, they still
do not know whether they can do it. There are too many uncertain
things about WCDMA, for example, all the matters concerning
CDMA2000 need to be negotiated with your company. Then,
why do you think CDMA mobile phone is not as prosperous
as GSM phone in China¡¯s market?
Frank Meng: I think there are two kinds of reasons. On the
one hand, the production scale is very important. Since
GSM accounts for about 80% to 85% of the global mobile communication
market, its scale is much larger than that of CDMA. It is
no denying that GSM has the favorable scale effects.
On the other hand, the operators, especially in China, have
not been involved in the purchasing of mobile phones. The
producers themselves design and put out the terminals, and
then again by themselves put the terminals into the market.
The mobile phone producers undertake all the opportunities
and risks. This leads to a large number of mobile phone
producers and phone types. But without technological innovation,
what you see is just a large number of different phone shells,
and the producers are only competing on the battlefield
of appearance and distribution channel.
But in fact, from the perspective of market economy, this
is not a good way of resource allocation. And in view of
scale effect, in foreign countries, when an operator is
at it early stage, it shall use different kinds of mobile
phones. However, when it grows strong enough, i.e., having
about 20 to 30 million users, it will usually prefer tailored
pieces. The tailored mobile phone has several advantages.
Firstly, it can connect the service with the terminal and
with its commitments to users: it can provide its target
customers with tailored services, and the terminals are
an integrated whole; secondly, the centralized purchase
price of the operator is lower than the market price. And
this fundamentally accords with the rules of market economy,
or so to speak, of the capitalist production¡
Wang Jing: In the United States, most of the mobile phones
are tailored pieces.
Frank Meng: It is the same case in most parts of Europe.
If you go to Europe, you will find the number of types of
GSM mobile phones are no more than the CDMA phones in Beijing.
Because the operators want to connect their services with
customer loyalty, they have to closely involve themselves
in the terminals. China is a relatively special market,
i.e., our operators are only loosely related to the terminals,
and there are too many mobile phone producers. But in fact,
according to the market rules, the market just can¡¯t contain
so many producers.
Wang Jing: So, it is not accidental that the domestic mobile
phone producers experienced the so-called ¡°price dive¡±.
Frank Meng: Yes, it¡¯s true. We have foreseen this since
long time before. When I just joined Qualcomm, I was also
in charge of the chip department. At that time, China¡¯s
CDMA producers were also subject to government approval,
and there were 19 approved CDMA producers in total. When
I visited the executives of those producers, I told them:
¡°This market cannot contain 19 producers, but at present,
I don¡¯t know who can survive in the end. I promise I will
go all out to support you to the end, to find out whether
you can succeed.¡± We have no bias for or against any one,
but in the end some will be looming large, and others fading
away, which is how market works.
Wang Jing: Now we get back to the topic of TD. Do you think
it is better for TD mobile phones to be tailored or just
like those of GSM?
Frank Meng: I think they are better to be tailored. Since
the market scale of China has developed to today¡¯s level,
if it still takes the old way of state-owned enterprise
having one producer in each region, it is no good to allocate
the entire resources. But from the consumers¡¯ point of view,
they actually do not care about whether your service is
2G, 3G or 1G, and they don¡¯t care about which air interface
technology you adopt either. What they care about is the
price, appearance, application and operability of the mobile
phones.
What is the major difference between 3G and 2G services?
It is the wireless application of data. We refer to 3G as
the wireless internet, and the phone producers¡¯ task is
to connect the wireless mobile equipments with the broad-band
network. To make a phone call, one can use 2G mobile phones,
or even 1G phones, if network is still available. But if
an operator really wants to provide the 3G services, it
shall have a lot of subtle things to do in constructing
the platform and embedding these services in the terminals.
So, if the operators can standardize the mobile phones,
it will be good for the users as well as to the whole industry.
Wang Jing: I wonder if tailoring means that the pressure
of the terminal producers shall be some what relieved because
the operators will directly go to them for tailored mobile
phones.
Frank Meng: Not necessarily. If the operators purchase tailored
mobile phones, the time that the terminal producer spends
in market will surely be shortened. But if the operators
do not purchase its products, for once or twice, it will
be out of the game. The US market is large, but each operator
orders products only from a few mobile phone producers,
instead of many. It conforms to the market rule for the
operators to purchase tailored mobile phones.
Wang Jing: That is to say, all these things don¡¯t have much
to do with the Intellectual Property rights?
Frank Meng: Right, they have nothing to do with IPR.
? Intellectual Property Rights will not
Stand on the Way of TD Commercialization
Wang Jing: Now, people are also concerned
with the Intellectual Property Rights, on which there are
some different views. But it is known that the Chinese companies
have a large share of the core technology of TD, especially
in the part of air interface. What is unknown is the IPR
of TD mobile phone. If TD is commercialized next year or
in the future, will the IPR of TD become a barrier?
Frank Meng: I think IPR of TD will not stand in the way
of TD commercialization for two reasons. First of all, in
the past, for all the communication systems, IPR have always
been a commercial transaction. The industry can handle it
very well at last. It was never viewed as a barrier. Secondly,
people usually talk about who has how much share of an IPR.
In fact, it¡¯s a misunderstanding. What is relevant with
IPR is to ¡°have¡± or to ¡°don¡¯t have¡±, right? When one producer
uses the other¡¯s IPR, they can negotiate about their shares
and cross-licensing. A responsible producer will firstly
find out if it uses someone else¡¯s IPR when it develops
a product. And if so, it shall think about how to negotiate
with the IPR owner to get the license, and make the deal.
Wang Jing: It is about business.
Frank Meng: Yes. It is completely a about business.
Wang Jing: This will be a good explanation for our readers.
Frank Meng: I think so.
Wang Jing: It is meaningless to talk about the percentages.
Frank Meng: Those are the give and take between the producers.
Even if when you go shopping for a dress, you shall not
say that you must sell it to me at the price of 100 or 500
Yuan. So I think it is a problem the producers can settle.
But the producers have to lay importance on it, which is
favorable to the solution of the problem.
Qualcomm helped many producers in the developing countries
with the model of IPR licensing. The traditional telecom
model is that the producers shall do R&D themselves,
and once they obtain the IPR, they do not license to the
others. In the end, there will be only several big companies
that can continue their R&D. Their technologies become
better and better, but the others just can not afford to
do it.
Qualcomm flattens the industry chain. It invest 20% of its
annual revenue, which transforms into better technologies,
and through the licensing, the medium and small enterprises
all over the world, so long as they are ready to enter this
industry, can get in contact with the technologies, and
can get into competition.
For example, WCDMA, especially HSDPA we just mentioned,
has been growing very fast for many years. In its growing
process, Qualcomm took the lead, and we licensed the technology
to our cooperating producers, especially the Chinese producers.
So they became the largest mainstream suppliers of HSDPA
cards. Therefore, I think this model has its advantages,
and commercially sound. Up to now, there are more than 140
companies that have Qualcomm¡¯s CDMA licenses, and more than
80 have Qualcomm¡¯s WCDMA and TD-SCDMA licenses.
Wang Jing: Do you usually license WCDMA and TD-SCDMA together?
Frank Meng: Yes, because they are both inside 3GPP.
Wang Jing: Their charging percentages are identical?
Frank Meng: Yes.
? WiMax will not have too Much Influence
over TD
Wang Jing: Thank you Frank. Your explanation
about IPR is much clearer than I have expected. Here comes
the last question. Qualcomm is also active in researches
of future technologies, no matter LTE or UMB. What is the
focal point of Qualcomm¡¯s future researches, and what¡¯s
your opinion with such relevant technologies as WiMax?
Frank Meng: I think, Qualcomm as a technology enterprise,
have its eyes over two aspects of the technologies. On the
one hand, we shall invest much fund in basic technological
researches; on the other, we shall keep in track of the
future possible technologies. What you just mentioned, such
as LTE, UMB and WiMax, are all based on OFDM, in which Qualcomm
invested many years ago. And Qualcomm also acquired some
companies which took lead in this field. Our investment
in such mobile communication technologies will carry on.
From another perspective, it is about what are the views
and demands of the entire market, especially of the operators.
At present, the entire global mobile communication industry
is divided into two groups, one is 3GPP and the other is
3GPP2 or WCDMA and CDMA2000. They have corresponding technological
evolution path. Qualcomm, in order to support its customers,
provides the operators with terminal systems. We actively
and widely participate in the chip researches and the future
technology researches.
WiMax has many traces brought from the original fixed access
system. So we think it is more possible to take it as a
wireless access system, instead of a mobile WAN to construct
the network. I think it won¡¯t be constructed in the WAN
until 802.16M arrives. However, I think its technological
specs and the time entering the market shall be inferior
to and later than LTE. How much market space it will have
is still to be observed.
Wang Jing: The developing speed of WiMax and its current
mature degree is not as good as expected.
Frank Meng: They¡¯ve gone roundabouts. The people stipulating
the standards are very precise, and a single wording can
be very important. But after the WiMax is put out, we find
more about market promotions than other things. For example,
WiMax boasts of the high frequencies, it is said that the
frequencies of hundreds of Megabits or tens of G bits can
be used over it. But they are gradually limited, and finally
to the scope of 3G IMT2000. And in the aspect of TDD frequency,
the stories are also changing. It at first insisted upon
802.16E WAN, but now upon 802.16M. To be frank, their changes
are also a process of learning.
Wang Jing: You¡¯ve given me so much information. Thank you
very much. Besides Sina.com, this interview will also be
published on our own promoting platform. We have daily news,
which has more than 2 thousand audience. I think this will
be a very good communication among Qualcomm, members of
the forum and people paying attention to TD-SCDMA.
Frank Meng: Thanks to the Forum, and we will continue to
participate in it.
Wang Jing: Thank you very much.
(The End)
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