Intel completes sale of its smartphone modem business to iPhone maker Apple

Intel announced on Monday that it has completed the sale of the majority of its smartphone modem business to Apple. This transaction, valued at US$1 billion, was announced in July. 

As previously disclosed, this transaction enables Intel to focus on developing technology for 5G networks while retaining the option to develop modems for non-smartphone applications, such as PCs, internet of things devices and autonomous vehicles.

Intel and Apple have signed an agreement for Apple to acquire the majority of Intel’s smartphone modem business. Approximately 2,200 Intel employees will join Apple, along with intellectual property, equipment and leases. 

Combining the acquired patents for current and future wireless technology with Apple’s existing portfolio, Apple will hold over 17,000 wireless technology patents, ranging from protocols for cellular standards to modem architecture and modem operation. 

Intel will retain the option to develop modems for non-smartphone applications, such as PCs, internet of things devices and autonomous vehicles.

Intel opposes Qualcomm’s appeal in US District Court; files brief supporting FTC

Intel files a brief supporting the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and opposing Qualcomm’s appeal of the judgment rendered in May against Qualcomm by the United States District Court, Northern District of California. 

The District Court found that “Qualcomm’s licensing practices have strangled competition in the CDMA and premium LTE modem chip markets for years, and harmed rivals, OEMs and end consumers.” The District Court also found that Qualcomm’s conduct “unfairly tends to destroy competition itself.”

Intel agrees with the District Court’s findings. Intel suffered the brunt of Qualcomm’s anticompetitive behavior, was denied opportunities in the modem market, was prevented from making sales to customers and was forced to sell at prices artificially skewed by Qualcomm. 

Qualcomm would have you believe that its position in the market today — as the last surviving U.S. supplier of premium modem chips — is due to its “ingenuity and business acumen,” and that its rivals in the market failed simply because “they did not offer good enough chips at low enough prices.” This is simply not true.

Instead, as detailed in the District Court’s opinion and in our brief, Qualcomm maintained its monopoly through a brazen scheme carefully crafted and implemented over many years. This scheme consists of a web of anticompetitive conduct designed to allow Qualcomm to coerce customers, tilt the competitive playing field and exclude competitors, all the while shielding itself from legal scrutiny and capturing billions in unlawful gains.

The victims were Qualcomm’s own customers (original equipment manufacturers or OEMs), the long list of competitors it forced out of the modem chip market, including Intel, and ultimately consumers. 

Intel fought for nearly a decade to build a profitable modem chip business, and invested billions, hired thousands, acquired two companies and built innovative products that eventually made their way into Apple’s iPhones, including the most recently released iPhone 11. 

But when all was said and done, Intel could not overcome the artificial and insurmountable barriers to fair competition created by Qualcomm’s scheme and was forced to exit the market this year.

“As I have pointed out before, the District Court’s decision finding Qualcomm violated the antitrust laws comes on the heels of governmental entities around the globe reaching the same conclusion,” wrote Steven R. Rodgers is executive vice president and general counsel at Intel, in a post. “As a result of its anticompetitive practices, Qualcomm has been fined nearly $1 billion in China, $850 million in Korea, $1.2 billion by the European Commission and $773 million in Taiwan (later reduced in settlement). The FTC, however, did not seek monetary relief. Instead, it sought injunctive relief to prevent Qualcomm from continuing to engage in its unlawful conduct.”

Among other things, the District Court prohibited Qualcomm from continuing to implement the central component of its scheme, its coercive “no license, no chips” (NLNC) policy. Under the policy, Qualcomm cuts off handset OEMs’ purchases of modem chips unless they enter into a patent license agreement on Qualcomm’s terms. These onerous, one-sided terms enable Qualcomm to artificially lower the price of its modems while simultaneously inflating customers’ costs of using modem chips manufactured by competitors, like Intel, by charging royalties as large as the price of the modems themselves. 

The District Court concluded that the NLNC policy, together with other anticompetitive behavior on Qualcomm’s part, unlawfully distorted and, in fact, destroyed the competitive playing field.

The world benefits from fair competition in the wireless technology market. Given the importance of wireless technology to the future of connected computing, including the revolutionary promise of 5G, we strongly support the efforts of the FTC and other law enforcement agencies to require Qualcomm to obey the laws and compete on a level playing field.

“We hope our amicus brief will help in clarifying the full extent of the harm that Qualcomm’s unlawful behavior has caused and will continue to cause if left unchecked,” Stevans added.

Opengear announces Verizon certification for ACM7000-L resilience gateway products with global modem

Opengear, provider of solutions that deliver secure, resilient network access and automation to critical IT infrastructure, announced Wednesday that the ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products have received the Verizon Wireless Open Development Device Certification for embedded global modem.

The ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway ensures uptime at branch offices, retail stores, kiosks and other remote sites. Cellular access provides an always-on gateway to your off-site network devices, even when the primary network is down. It helps identify and remediate issues at the network edge before they become failures with Smart OOB, and provides maximize WAN resilience with Failover to Cellular to 4G LTE networks and built-in multicarrier capabilities.

To earn the Verizon Wireless Open Development Device Certification, the ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products underwent a series of testing and conformance requirements that all devices must meet before they are certified for use on the Verizon Wireless network. Opengear is the first manufacturer to embed the EM7565 modem in a device and complete Verizon certification.

As organizations become increasingly global and move their networks to the edge, network management becomes progressively more complex. As most hardware devices require the use of a regionalized modem, not only are network engineers responsible for ensuring edge locations receive the right hardware, they must also ensure that hardware is equipped with a modem configured for the local wireless network, or risk the devices being unusable. With the move to a global modem, Opengear has made it possible for customers to purchase and use a single, network agnostic device across all edge locations globally.

By eliminating the need for region-specific modules across its ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products – including the ACM7004-2-L, ACM7004-5-L and ACM7008-2-L – coupled with its built in Smart OOB and Failover to Cellular capabilities, organizations are able to run global networks on a single device SKU.

Additional feature improvements to the ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products include CAT12 speed 600 Mbps download / 150 Mbps upload capabilities with 3G failback, providing customers with a single solution for out-of-band (OOB) and WAN failover at remote sites and allowing the download of critical files onto embedded device storage over cellular networks. 

It also offers improved flexibility with high density of serial console access in a small form factor via a combination of 4 x serial RS232 ports, 8 x serial RS232 ports and 4 x serial RS232 with an embedded 4x GbE switch; improved, dual SIM slots for carrier diversity that enable error-free installation with push click; with high device operating and storage temperature, allowing products to be deployed in harsh and uncontrolled environments with no impact on performance.

“As networks are increasingly distributed, organizations are looking for infrastructure that simplifies network management while ensuring resilience,” said Thomas Wang, senior product manager, Opengear. “At Opengear, we strive to provide our customers with this peace of mind by providing class-leading products that can be bought and provisioned once and used everywhere around the world. With the updates to our ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products – including the Verizon certification – we continue to lead the industry by providing unmatched speed, value and flexibility.”