Are Qualcomm patent royalties an unfair tax on cellphone makers? Or have they helped the industry? Those questions are at the heart of a high-stakes trial that begins in a U.S. courtroom in Delaware Wednesday. Cellphone giant Nokia, which says it has paid more than US$1 billion in royalties to Qualcomm since the 1990s, believes it is paying too much.

TransferJet is a Sony-developed wireless system that can send data at speeds of up to 375Mbps (bits per second) over distances of around 3 centimeters. It's designed to replace the cables that are typically needed to connect gadgets and its speed rivals that of USB2.0 and Firewire, the two dominant cable-based systems in use today.

"We are opting either to combine it with an envisioned joint venture with Samsung SDI on AM OLED displays or send the mobile LCD unit to Samsung SDI's Mobile Display Business Unit," a high-ranking Samsung Electronics official told The Korea Times.

...Initial products at launch in Baltimore were confirmed to include embedded WiMAX laptops using Intel chipsets, the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet WiMAX Edition, a Samsung PC Card, a ZTE USB dongle and a ZyXEL CPE modem. Other vendors and products are expected to be approved by Sprint for use on the network and enter commercial availability in the future...

Nokia Siemens Networks said on July 11 that it had won network expansion orders worth 550 million euros (US$865 million) from the world's top mobile operator China Mobile in the first half of the year.

Trai has also accused the Department of Telecom (DoT) of keeping it in the dark, both on the availability of WiMAX spectrum as well as on the government’s efforts to get other users such as the department of space to vacate these radio frequencies.The regulator has also demanded that the government put in place a transparent and efficient spectrum management regime.

...Motorola's ability to gain share is being hampered as rivals including Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM) step up their attack on the market for smartphones, multifeatured handsets that deliver e-mail, productivity applications, and other advanced services. Motorola has yet to deliver AT&T an update to its smartphone, the Q, which debuted in 2007. In roughly the same time frame, Apple has delivered two versions of its popular iPhone....

For its networks in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, the first three markets for its WiMax service, Sprint will use equipment from DragonWave, an Ottawa company that makes wireless Ethernet nodes that can be arranged in a mesh.

The UK's largest fixed wireless access provider, is moving its network to WiMAX, and the EC has announced a decision that should increase the availability of WiMAX spectrum in Europe. On-Communications, which offers fixed wireless services designed to compete with business-quality leased lines, already operates in London, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds and Oxford, and will be using equipment from Airspan for a major rollout of "hundreds" of WiMAX base stations. New installations will use Airspan's MicroMax products...

The global BWA/WiMAX subscriber base increased by 260,246 in the first quarter of 2008, reaching a total of 1,988,246 subscribers according to figures from Maravedis. “Even with an increase of more than 19% in WiMAX subscribers in the first quarter of 2008, operators are still waiting for the tipping point that will lead to acceleration of WiMAX adoption and deployments,” said Adlane Fellah, CEO and founder of Maravedis.

Wi-LAN Inc., the Canadian technology licensing company, has added LG, the Korean electronics giant, to a growing list of big industry players that it is taking to court. LG joins Motorola, Research in Motion and UTStarCom to the group of wireless handset makers that Wi-LAN believes are infringing its wireless patents.

Thanks to good performances of high-end touch screen phones in the key North American and European markets, LG Electronics is widely expected to beat Motorola to become the world's No. 3 phone maker in the second quarter. According to industry estimates including market research firm Strategy Analytics, the South Korean company will sell a maximum of 29 million phones in the April-June period, while Motorola of the United States is forecast to sell some 28 million.

In two separate cases, the companies accused each other of falsely claiming to hold patents that were essential to the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) 3G (Third-Generation) standard. Vendors who make equipment that complies with the standard must pay licensing fees to the developers who contribute patents to it.

...Sources say that the DoT wants the WiMax launch be initially restricted to only three players who will operate this service in the 2.5 GHz frequency band where one of the slots is reserved for state-owned BSNL/MTNL. This contradicts the recommendations of telecom regulator TRAI which had suggested that wireless broadband be rolled out in 3.3-3.4 GHz and 3.4-3.6 Ghz frequencies and up to 13 players be allocated spectrum to offer WiMax services....

China's Huawei Technologies said it has been selected by Mobilink, the largest GSM operator in Pakistan and a subsidiary of Orascom Telecom, to deploy a commercial WiMAX 16e network. In a statement, Huawei said the network will cover central business districts and hot spots in Islamabad, Karachi, Sialkot, Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi.

Created from the mobile and wireless businesses of STMicroelectronics and NXP, which together generated $3 billion USD in revenue in 2007, the new company will begin operations in a strong position to meet customer needs in 2G, 2.5G, 3G, multimedia, connectivity and all future wireless technologies. ST-NXP Wireless is expected to enter the market in number three position once full closure of the joint venture takes place, as scheduled, in the third quarter of 2008.

Comcast has revealed its intention to pursue WiMax femtocells as a key to its wireless strategy. Dave Williams, senior VP for wireless and technology at the cable giant said that part of the new Clearwire deal calls for 5MHz of spectrum across the US to be set aside solely for WiMax femtocells. ”It was hard won, but that’s in the deal,” said Williams, who joined Comcast earlier this year after most recently serving as chief technology o

The Ministry of Communications is set to publish its final WiMAX policy by Sunday at the latest. The policy will include a revolutionary proposal for encouraging deployment of a WiMAX network in which the money will be returned to the operator winning the tender as the network penetration deepens and the deployment broadens. The idea is to create an incentive for new operators to deploy as large a network as possible.

he company said it added 2.3 million subscribers in the quarter, bringing its subscriber base to more than 16 million. RIM is expected to introduce a touchscreen BlackBerry, as well as a clam-shell version of the device later this year. The company has announced a BlackBerry enabled with so-called third-generation, or 3G technology, called the Bold that will be introduced by AT&T Corp. sometime this year.

...Today, wireless operators control content, but the power they wield is in subsidies for handsets. When Apple came along with its iPhone, it changed the trend. It told operators, 'Get lost, don't subsidize and don't tell us what to do. We can sell the handset with no problem and give unlimited Internet access.' The wireless companies are trying to stop it but WiMAX will change things. Content is king, so wireless networks are the ones that supply the pipeline. They're not interesting in the least."...

Malaysian WiMAX broadband service provider Packet One Networks (Malaysia) has postponed its commercial rollout to sometime in the third quarter of this year. The rollout was originally scheduled for this month but chief executive Michael Lai told the press yesterday that Packet One is extending its user trials to make sure customers will be perfectly happy with its WiMAX service.

If nothing else, Nokia's moves to make Symbian a free and open mobile operating system should put pressure on the company's competitors to keep innovating and giving customers – device manufacturers, consumers, and carriers alike – what they want. Nokia said Tuesday that it aims to make Symbian – already the top smartphone operating system – the "most widely used software platform on the planet."

Nokia said Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, Panasonic and Siemens have accepted the offer, and it also expects Samsung Electronics to accept the offer.