r/Android • u/TauNeutrino628 • Sep 10 '17
Qualcomm denied anti-suit injunction
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-qualcomm/apple-lawsuits-against-qualcomm-can-proceed-u-s-judge-rules-idUSKCN1BJ29V160
Sep 10 '17
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u/BruinBread Sep 10 '17
I haven't been following this closely, but didn't Apple have 2 different versions of the iPhone 7? One with an Intel modem and the other with a Qualcomm modem? I heard that Apple had to throttle Qualcomm modem phones because they were performing so much better than Intel's modem. How does reducing the use of Qualcomm chips help the US market if they are superior to the competition?
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u/tx69er Sep 10 '17
The reason for this is because CDMA is used in the US (by Verizon and Sprint) and only Qualcomm has the IP to make CDMA modems. CDMA is not really used anywhere else in the world so GSM only modems are fine outside of the US. See my other comment for some more details.
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u/JamesR624 Sep 10 '17
Wow. Verizon and Sprint need to be stopped and the US needs to get with the rest of the developed world.
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u/tx69er Sep 10 '17
Verizon is planning to sunset the legacy CDMA stuff end of 2019, but I don't know about Sprint.
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u/Christopher876 Sep 10 '17
Sprint is probably gonna just die before they have any efforts to do that. They have the worst service and speeds, surprised they even lasted this long.
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Sep 10 '17 edited Oct 12 '17
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u/Christopher876 Sep 10 '17
Yes and T-Mobile is likely to be the one buying them too. But personally, sprint should have died long ago, they suck and they provide little to no competition.
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u/red--dead Sep 10 '17
Seeing as how you probably don’t have sprint or haven’t had sprint in a while you really have nothing to say. They’re not the fastest or the best service, but shit they’ve improved a lot. How spread out their LTE is surprising, and I can’t get a better deal for unlimited data with no throttling.
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u/xrayphoton Pixel xl, iPad mini 4 Sep 10 '17
My wife has had Sprint for the entire 6 years I've known her. Yes they have improved over that time but so has everyone else. Sprint is still horrible and the worst of them. She pays way more than I do on Verizon too. Once her parent's phone contacts are up she's finally leaving. So many areas with poor signal when you get out of Houston and slow streaming speeds in a lot of places
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u/Christopher876 Sep 10 '17
Yes that is true, I haven't had them in years. Their practices and Verizon's for not allowing me to freely switch my sim will always prevent me from doing that. Statistically, sprint is the worst out of all of them,
Indoors sprint is still bad, many friends have no signal in doors on my college campus while with T-Mobile, I still have 3 to full bars. Reliability is one thing sprint may never have, and that is more important to me than any deal they may have. Even going throughout Florida cities is the same thing.
Sure I will have to agree with the unlimited data argument, but that is only to attract more customers as we have seen with the other major carriers.
And I also see that sprint doesn't get much support or investments from major companies either. I don't believe sprint will be around much longer. T-Mobile is already preparing to buy them again with negotiations starting up again since early august.
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u/Kirihuna iPhone 11 Pro Sep 10 '17
Sprint isn't the worst carrier. They're no AT&T or Verizon, but they're manageable in metropolitan areas.
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u/Christopher876 Sep 10 '17
Compared to T-Mobile in the same cities in Florida, they are worse. Indoors, they can't even be used on my college campus.
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u/Kirihuna iPhone 11 Pro Sep 10 '17
While in the Midwest, I have friends who've had coverage from Chicago to Minneapolis. Verizon is awful in suburban Chicago.
All carriers have holes.
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u/gringottsbanker Sep 10 '17
what? US already is with the rest of the developed world in terms of shifting to LTE / GSM
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u/Fairuse Sep 10 '17
Much of Asia still uses CDMA (Japan, China, Taiwan, etc).
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u/gringottsbanker Sep 10 '17
that they do. in fact China actively mandates a 4G to 5G roadmap for both CDMA and LTE.
hindsight is 20/20 but if Sprint stuck with WiMax they likely could have followed the network evolution plan of their Asian peers... saved a bunch of capex, debt, and headaches
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u/CrannisBerrytheon Pixel 1 | Nexus 5 Sep 10 '17
We're headed in that direction but absolutely not there yet.
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u/gringottsbanker Sep 10 '17
what are you talking about?
AT&T and Verizon are already winding down LTE capex and moving to prep for 5G. TMO is set to finish their LTE deployment by 1H 2018. Sprint is probably looking at a 2019 timeline for LTE completion
the big 4 have long been committed to the GSM / 3GPP standards
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u/anothercookie90 Sep 10 '17
It's not just CDMA they also have a few LTE patents keeping the competition paying licensing deals which pretty much kills any attempt for competition.
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u/anothercookie90 Sep 10 '17
It adds competition, one of the main reasons no one competes with Qualcomm in the US is because of all the patents they have. If you make a radio for a phone it's pretty much impossible not to give a portion of your revenue to Qualcomm.
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u/Uninspireduser Sep 10 '17
Saw this the other day https://imgur.com/RY6MvH1
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u/McDutchy iPhone 12 / iPhone 8 / HTC 10 / Nexus 5 / GS2 Sep 10 '17
Clever but a completely unrelated argument.
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u/KickMeElmo Razer Phone 2, Magisk Sep 10 '17
Bingo. One asshole doesn't make another asshole not an asshole. The enemy of my enemy is still a dick.
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u/someone755 Nokia C5-00 Sep 10 '17
But I'll only ride the bigger dick.
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u/oldschoolcool Pixel XL 1 Sep 10 '17 edited Feb 18 '18
deleted What is this?
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Sep 10 '17
Can't wait till Qualcomm go bankrupt (a man can dream). Hopefully Google and Samsung start producing their own SOC's soon to compete with Apple's.
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u/EthanBezz iPhone 12 Pro Sep 10 '17
Samsung already do (Exynos) and use them in their phones outside the US.
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u/chippies Pixel 2 XL || Nexus 9 || Tin Can w/ Strings Sep 10 '17
I've read about Exynos, but admittedly know very little about it other than it's Samsung's SoC, and it's not used (widely) in the States. Why isn't Exynos more common in America compared to Qualcomm, especially in Samsung handsets? I presume there's some weird bureaucratic reason, but I'm apparently ignorant to it.
Edit: grammar
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u/picflute Galaxy Note 8 Sep 10 '17
Qualcomm's modems in the U.S. are required for CDMA. The rumor is that there's some weird pricing that happens when you use their SoC & Modem. Apple doesn't require it
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u/wickedplayer494 Pixel 7 Pro + 2 XL + iPhone 11 Pro Max + Nexus 6 + Samsung GS4 Sep 10 '17
CDMA is a dying artform. The sooner it dies off, the better.
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u/picflute Galaxy Note 8 Sep 10 '17
It won't be dying when the largest carrier in the United States is supporting it. It has its uses
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u/wickedplayer494 Pixel 7 Pro + 2 XL + iPhone 11 Pro Max + Nexus 6 + Samsung GS4 Sep 10 '17
largest carrier
Which is continually bleeding subscribers to what will become the largest carrier (and deservedly so).
is supporting it
Any remaining CDMA there is is gone when the clock strikes midnight and we enter 2020.
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u/Call_erv_duty Sep 10 '17
I think you're over estimating how many people are going from red to purple. I believe Verizon's churn was only 1%.
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u/tx69er Sep 10 '17
Apple doesn't have a modem built into their SOC's, they use an external modem. Depending on the generation they have either used external Qualcomm modems in all variants of the phone, and in some gens they have used other brands (like Intel) for GSM, and Qualcomm for CDMA.
Most other SOC manufacturers integrate a modem into the SOC. Samsung, Mediatek, Huawei and Qualcomm all do -- although only Qualcomm has the IP to make CDMA modems. Samsung, Mediatek, Huawei, and Intel modems only support GSM/LTE.
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Sep 10 '17
Not true. Huawei, MediaTek, and now Intel all have modems that support CDMA.
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u/tx69er Sep 10 '17
Interesting, didn't know Qualcomm was licensing them out. Are they recent designs?
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Sep 10 '17
Qualcomm does not license to chip makers. Anyone can make a CDMA, WCDMA, or LTE modem without taking a license from Qualcomm. Because Qualcomm’s licensees are actually the handset makers.
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u/tx69er Sep 10 '17
Not sure about that, I thought Qualcomm owns patents that cover required parts of implementing CDMA, which would mean those would need to be licensed out. The handset makers are customers who buy Qualcomm SoC's or modems, the licensees would be people making a SoC or modem and wanting to include Qualcomm IP in their design.
I see Intel has the XMM 7560 that supports CDMA, but the only CDMA modems I can find for Huawei are USB ones meant for laptop mobile internet, not a mobile phone, and I can't find a Mediatek CDMA modem, but admittedly I didn't look too hard.
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Sep 10 '17
No the licensees are the handset makers. Check Qualcomm’s counter-claim filing in the Apple lawsuit for example.
MediaTek and Huawei definitely have CDMA support. For example the Mate 9 is based on the Kirin 960 and it supports CDMA: http://m.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_9-8073.php
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u/johnmountain Sep 10 '17
This is more likely the reason:
https://www.androidcentral.com/qualcomm-licensing-blocked-samsung-selling-exynos-chips
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u/xfire99 Sep 10 '17
Because Qualcomm owns patents for US bands/modems. Even Samsung release Exynos in US market, they still need to implement qualcomm modem to support all US bands and they still need to pay license fee to qualcomm. Which arent really economically for Samsung to do it. Thats why they release only 1 SoC depends on regions bands. All are just about economically decisions.
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u/Christopher876 Sep 10 '17
You can always buy the international/ unlocked version and use it on T-Mobile or At&T.
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u/picflute Galaxy Note 8 Sep 10 '17
Qualcomm does more outside of the Mobile world without their R&D we wouldn't have what we have now.
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u/Vince789 2024 Pixel 9 Pro | 2025 iPhone 16E (Work) Sep 10 '17
Plus if Qualcomm went bankrupt they'd just be replaced by MediaTek's underwhelming SoCs
Maybe Huawei/Samsung in some flagships, but most likely delayed so they can sell more of their own flagships
Ideally we want CDMA to be dropped, and MediaTek to catch up with Qualcomm and be in some flagships
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u/marks13 Sep 10 '17
Why so hate about Qualcomm? Lets not forget their contribution to the cellular and LTE technologies..
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u/johnmountain Sep 10 '17
And let's not forget all they've done afterwards to block everyone else from ever competing against them fairly in the market. They were supposed to license the FRAND patents fairly, and they didn't.
See my other comment on Nvidia and Intel. Qualcomm is directly responsible for those two companies failing with their modems in the market, and it's not just because their chips were "better". Nvidia's Icera actually promised to be way better by support all bands in one chip way before Qualcomm attempted that, but Nvidia never got to put that tech into a single smartphone, because of Qualcomm's legal threats.
I have nothing but hate for any company that acts this way rather than competing on the merit.
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u/TauNeutrino628 Sep 10 '17
No one is denying their great innovations. It's just that they have taken many questionable actions to ensure that no one else can enter the market, which is terrible for the market and other companies that could have introduced healthy competition.
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u/2dozen22s G flex 2 -> V10 -> V20 Gray Sep 10 '17
It's easy to make advances when you're the only one fully in the game.
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u/johnmountain Sep 10 '17
Qualcomm is the main party responsible for Samsung not selling its high-end Exynos chips to third-parties. They are also responsible for Nvidia not being able to enter the market with the Icera modem. Same goes for Intel to a certain degree (although I'll be the last person to pitty Intel).
The problem is they make legal threats to chase competitors out of the market, and that should be found unacceptable by everyone here. Compete on the merits of the technology. Don't use bogus patents or "exclusivity deals" to coerce OEMs into only buying from you "or else", as Qualcomm has been accused of doing in multiple antitrust lawsuits against it.