Sewell is directly quoted as saying cellular "isn't as important as it used to be." When they thought 3.5mm TRS wasn't as important as it used to be they cut it. Seems like cellular is perhaps still more crucial to the viability of the phone than they want to admit.
in what ways did Qualcomm violate FRAND terms? Nokia, Ericsson and pretty much everyone else uses the entire device as a royalty basis. This is a fairly standard industry practice -- and has been so for decades.
While Qualcomm is the largest contributor of wireless standards, it is far from a monopology.
Also note that Apple accuses of every wireless patents holders of some sort of unfair pricing and violation of FRAND terms whenever Apple is up for license renewal. This is coming from a company that audaciously asked about $30 per device for a handful of frivolous design and utility patents from Samsung.
First, Apple doesn't directly pay Qualcomm. Apple has refused to take Qualcomm license, though I'm pretty sure Qualcomm would love to have Apple as their customer and start collecting license fees based on their retail price.
Second, Foxconn, Pegatron and Apple's contractors are the ones paying for Qualcomm licenses. Their licensing agreement with Qualcomm likewise precedes Apple's iPhone release in 2007. In another word, those contract manufacturers pay the same royalty rate to Qualcomm whether their end-products are for Apple, HTC, or whoever -- they all pay the same rate. Apple's rates are probably lower given various "collation" agreements (and rebates) Apple imposed on Qualcomm.
If you are trying to say Qualcomm unfairly charges Apple more, you need to bring some facts.
Directly From Apple. And they have said these number of times in the public. Apple did not bring out any thing to prove it, so i am going to take its word they are not lying.
Those agreement also precede LTE.
You cant NOT use Qualcomm patents in LTE, but if Qualcomm were allowed to charge whatever they wanted, then they have a monopoly case, and we have to have somebody to define what is a fair price. Since Qualcomm are subject to FRAND.
All these patents fee were one of the reason why HEVC started charging $100M / year combined for their Video Codec, 20 times more the AVC / H.264. Because they saw what 4G patents were capable of charging.
1) can you cite your source? Apple is known for their sleazy wordsmithing and, having followed their lawsuits last several years, throwing completely unsubstantiated accusation at their opponent (see my comment about a 2012 USITC case against Samsung where Apple's own witness came out testifying against Apple). I'd like to read it myself as I'm pretty sure there are a lot of footnotes and modifiers that are not conveyed in one-liners.
2) whether contract manufacturers' licensing with Qualcomm precede LTE is immaterial in this case. Any LTE handset maker sourcing those contract manufacturers will (indirectly) pay the same rates. Apple and Qualcomm had business "collaboration" agreements in which Qualcomm provided additional technical, support resources and monetary compensation for sticking with Qualcomm (see Qualcomm's lawsuit). Apple is likely paying far less than smaller handset makers without such agreements with Qualcomm.
3) "You cant NOT use Qualcomm patents in LTE" <-- not sure what you mean. Qualcomm like many wireless patent holders routinely publishes their (initial) FRAND rates and if the company is engaged in unfair licensing practices, it would be easy to find that out. I'd like to emphasize that, contrary to Apple's view on FRAND, FRAND doesn't mean cheap and SEP patent holders are under no obligation to license their patents. (ETSI IPR Guide, Section 1.11 (http://www.etsi.org/images/files/IPR/etsi-guide-on-ipr.pdf):
The purpose of the ETSI IPR Policy is to facilitate the
standards making process within ETSI. In complying with the
Policy the Technical Bodies should not become involved in
legal discussion on IPR matters. The main characteristics
of the Policy can be simplified as follows:
• Members are fully entitled to hold and benefit from any
IPRs which they may own, including the right
to refuse the granting of licenses.
4) MPEGA licensing schemes are fundamentally different than that of the wireless industry. For starter, theirs is based on some fixed cost per unit which caps at 90M per year; whereas Qualcomm's is a percentage of end-user device with no limit in quantity. Apple is allegedly paying something like $2B per year to Qualcomm as a result. Further Apple is an active contributing member of MPEGLA standard and most patents holders pay nowhere close to the publicized figure due to various sales and cross-licensing agreements.
Qualcomm agreed to FRAND terms in exchange to adding their patents to the 3G standard.
Once that happened, Qualcomm then violated their FRAND terms to create a monopoly on CDMA chipsets, charge additional royalties, etc.
If they drop Qualcomm, then they'll have to drop CDMA support (Verizon, Sprint, 3g, 4g).