The adoption of 802.16 WiMAX technology will not reduce the revenue derived from its largely CDMA-based intellectual property (IP), according to Qualcomm’s chief operating officer, Sanjay Jha, and should even eventually increase it.

“It is not possible to do WiMAX without some essential patents from Qualcomm. We think with 802.16m [mobile WiMAX] our strength will increase,” said Jha. “We believe 802.16e is not true mobility. 802.16m is when you worry about quality of service, power, reliability - then our IP position improves.”

The draft 802.16m standard for mobile WiMAX is intended to meet the requirements of the IMT-Advanced radio interface standard being developed by the ITU. This includes data rates of 100Mbit/s when travelling at high speed and 1Gbit/s for low-speed mobility.

However, Qualcomm is yet to be convinced by WiMAX.

“One reason is technical. There’s a poor control structure which doesn’t do latency handoff and real time services very well,” said Jha. “There’s nothing wrong with the standard that can’t be fixed by 802.16m but, as it is, the standard is flawed.”

He also questioned predictions made for the technology. “I don’t see the scale that CDMA happened on and there we had to work really hard and had a better technology.”

Mobile WiMAX uses multiple input, multiple output antenna technology on OFDM-based radio.

In 2005 Qualcomm gained access to OFDM technology when it acquired Flarion Technologies and Jha has high hopes for it. “CDMA took about 12 years to break even on cash flow,” said Jha. “OFDM will probably take longer, but it will probably make more money in the end.”