How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years • Hacker News Board

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#231

Post by bsder » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:39 AM UTC

tareqak wrote: post #70

bsder wrote: post #46

Is Qualcomm a ruthless monopolist? Yep. But what people forget is that EVERYBODY was knifing one another in that space when CDMA originally came out. The only difference is that Qualcomm is the ruthless monopolist that won. In addition, while I have no love lost for Qualcomm, what you do have to remember is that CDMA was a "bet the farm" moment. If CDMA could be delivered, it was significantly better than what existe…

What other corporation requires paying to license their patent portfolio in order to be allowed buy their products? I don't have to pay for a license from McDonald's to eat their burger. I'm not an expert in this domain, so there might be more relevant example. Update: fixed up my wording.

Um, wasn't that the case for MP3 until the patents ran out?

You basically couldn't buy MP3 encoding hardware because nobody could negotiate a rate that didn't suck.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#232

Post by ddorian43 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:41 AM UTC

tooltalk wrote: post #225

planetsmashr wrote: post #140

I recently worked with a technical VP at a chip foundry in South Korea. One day Quallcom came up in discussion and he said "Qualcomm are like gangsters in the industry".

I know this is completely tangential, but just wondering if Apple ever came up in discussion.

Apple is the gangster in the hood.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#233

Post by halter73 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:45 AM UTC

tooltalk wrote: post #80

Veen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Microsoft did have a monopoly in the browser market at that time. Apple doesn’t have a monopoly in the browser market or the phone market or the app market. You can’t abuse a monopoly you don’t have.

QCOM doesn't have a monopoly in the baseband market either, yet Koh's court found QCOM's monopoly there. The FTC simply redefined a market where QCOM had a dominant marketshare -- the "premium" modem market (LTE) -- for Koh to come to that ruling. So I guess if someone can prove AAPL's dominance in "premium" PC, education, or some niche subgroup in PC market, it too can be in trouble.

> So I guess if someone can prove AAPL's dominance in "premium" PC, education, or some niche subgroup in PC market, it too can be in trouble.

If Apple used its dominance in some niche subgroup PC market to force buyers to pay a percentage of the total cost of all USB-C devices they buy, including non-Apple devices, to Apple to pay for Apple's patents related to USB-C. And if those buyers were companies like Best Buy that needed to be able to buy Apple devices or else lose access to over half their market. And if Apple refused to sell buyers any devices unless they agreed to those terms. And if Apple promised during standardization of USB-C to offer licenses to said patents on FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms. Then that analogy might hold a little water.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#234

Post by jMyles » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:00 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #226

jMyles wrote: post #212

The monopolistic position of qualcomm has ~~not only~~ perhaps driven up prices, but of even greater concern, has created a single point of failure for phone security. I have concerns that, even as full device encryption has evolved and many of us have moved communication to more secure media (Signal, Riot, etc), the very baseband chip of the phone is still acting like a bug in our homes.

>The monopolistic position of qualcomm has not only driven up prices There has been no evidence as such. Even in court.

Fine, I added a "perhaps" - my real point was about spying, not prices.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#235

Post by jMyles » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:01 AM UTC

tooltalk wrote: post #223

jMyles wrote: post #212

The monopolistic position of qualcomm has ~~not only~~ perhaps driven up prices, but of even greater concern, has created a single point of failure for phone security. I have concerns that, even as full device encryption has evolved and many of us have moved communication to more secure media (Signal, Riot, etc), the very baseband chip of the phone is still acting like a bug in our homes.

> The monopolistic position of qualcomm has not only driven up prices, What is your evidence of such claim?

I think that a monopolistic shake down of this nature is always connected to price increases, but you're right that I don't have specific evidence.

And in any case, my comment is not about prices, but about security.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#236

Post by braythwayt » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:02 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #162

blunte wrote: post #108

I find great irony in Qualcomm exercising a monopoly position to take a % of total phone price from Apple... since Apple uses its monopoly position to take a % of all app revenue. What Apple thinks would be fair for Qualcomm chip license fees would also be reasonable for App Store fees.

> since Apple uses its monopoly position to take a % of all app revenue Wait. What are you talking about? They own a platform, others want to use that platform to make money, so Apple is charging fees to use their platform. Where is the monopoly part? Developers have other avenues to sell their software on (Android) iOS and Android can be classified as a Duopoly though.

Duopoly is when the two heterogenous companies coöperate to form a monopoly. That was Wintel.

A cartel is when a small number of homogenous companies share the market while ostensibly competing with each other, but coöperate to erect barriers to anyone else getting into the market.

If Apple and Google block other companies from getting into the mobile device business, they would be a cartel.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#237

Post by Mbaqanga » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:17 AM UTC

America is rife with de facto monopolies and duopolies. That is our version of capitalism which champions competition but its all talk with little walk. That the government would pick on Qualcomm is a mystery to me. Its lobbyists must not have paid off the right people.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#238

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:21 AM UTC

aey wrote: post #188

Retric wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not a carrier and they don’t own spectrum. So, they would need to buy one expand 6g networks. Anyway, such verticals integration is unlikely to be good for consumers.

Qualcomm doesn’t own spectrum either. Apple should be investing in tech, not in cash. It’s crazy to think of tech companies sitting on that much cash. At this rate, apple will have 1T in the bank in 15 years.

[deleted]

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#239

Post by wtallis » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:23 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #224

hajile wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semiaccurate has a rather interesting take here. TL;DR is that modems are very hard to make. Intel's modems were much slower and used much more power for last generation. They ran into issues and don't seem to even have a shippable 5g chip. https://www.semiaccurate.com/2019/04/16/qualcomm-just-beat-a... https://www.semiaccurate.com/2019/04/18/why-did-intel-kill-o...

Semiaccurate also said Intel's 10nm is dead. And Nokia was going bankrupt. So please, please, stop bringing up SemiAccurate on HN.

Intel's 10nm was a failure. Cannonlake was a mostly broken chip. It's taken them a year and a half from shipping Cannonlake to starting to ship Ice Lake. The 10nm process Ice Lake is fabbed with is not the same process Cannonlake was fabbed with; Intel has disclosed a few of the changes that were made in order to produce a viable chip, but we won't know the full extent of the changes until TechInsights gets their hands on an Ice Lake chip.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#240

Post by iicc » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:27 AM UTC

aey wrote: post #86

guardiangod wrote: post #19

As a former worker at Blackberry(RIM) cellular chip division (hello fellow RCT-ees), this article explains so much it physically hurts me. RIM pushed hard to develop its own chip 3G/4G chips because Qualcomm absolutely strangled the company with its licensing cost/terms. They pretty much demanded a separate cellular R&D team (QCT) that duplicates half the effort. All CDMA based phones must contain chips from QCT beca…

I don't think Qualcomm strangled RIM with their 3.4% (peak!) licensing fee on the selling price of the phone. If RIMs profit margin was 3.5% they had bigger problems. Here is the thing. If Apple sold a 2G network based iPhone with a non Qualcomm IP modem, and a 4G iPhone at 2x the price with a Qualcomm modem, which one would make more money for Apple?

>I don't think Qualcomm strangled RIM with their 3.4% (peak!) licensing fee on the selling price of the phone. If RIMs profit margin was 3.5% they had bigger problems.

That entirely depends on what Qualcomm was charging RIM's competitors.