CDMA religion

America's Network, Nov 1, 2004 by Grahame Lynch

A quick look at any Qualcomm stock message board will confirm the near-religious fervor held by many for the firm and, particularly, the purity of the CDMA protocol. But Qualcomm's latest moves amount to heresy in the light of the 1990s religious wars over CDMA.

First, it announced it would formally combine with NTT DoCoMo to help develop the UMTS platform globally. UMTS does use CDMA patents, but it is a direct competitor for infrastructure and handset market share against Qualcomm's preferred CDMA 1X. Now, Qualcomm has also revealed that it will be incorporating OFDM in the radio access layer of a new extension of its EV-DO platform.

OFDM has often been hailed as a CDMA killer. Of course, Qualcomm is simply engaging in good business practice by co-opting rival platforms.