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Comment by GeekyBear | Hacker News Reader

> throwing their partners under the bus

I found it telling that every single smartphone vendor refused to license Qualcomm's proprietary tech for smartphone to satellite messaging.

> In a statement given to CNBC, Qualcomm says smartphone makers “indicated a preference towards standards-based solutions” for satellite-to-phone connectivity

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/qualcomm-kills-its-c...

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Anyone only ever uses Qualcomm chips because they have a gun to their head.

Usually that gun is the latest wireless standard like 4g or 5g.

4g and 5g are open standards.

It was their now mostly irrelevant CDMA patents that Qualcomm used as a weapon against device makers.

> Many carriers (such as AT&T, UScellular and Verizon) shut down 3G CDMA-based networks in 2022 and 2024, rendering handsets supporting only those protocols unusable for calls, even to 911.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-division_multiple_acces...

In my opinion, Qualcomm's abuse of their CDMA patents is the reason that zero device makers were willing to get on board with a new Qualcomm proprietary technology.

They’re open standards, sure, but there is almost no competition in the cellular modem space. Intel tried and failed spectacularly. Apple bought the scraps of the Intel modem business and still hasn’t released their own modems after… 5 years? Cellular tech is hard and has a lot of esoteric requirements. If you want a cell modem for a smartphone, you essentially buy either the latest and greatest from Qualcomm or you buy something from one of the Chinese companies (Huawei, Mediatek) which has its own set of problems.

Samsung, Huawei and MediaTek SOCs implement the same open 4g/5g standards.

Apple's modem is said to be shipping this coming spring in the newest iPhone SE iteration.

Google's Pixel phone lineup has used Samsung's modems for generations now.

There’s so many sub varieties of the standards. You’re making a gross oversimplification that they’re “the same”. Compare intel vs Qualcomm modems that were released on iPhones. They were “the same” standard but the Qualcomm modems were notably faster in testing. Maybe they’re all at parity these days, but it’s pretty hard to do a fair comparison.

By all means, point to some official statement showing that Google cannot market the Pixel phone as supporting the 4g/5g standards due to Google's use of Samsung modems.

You’re not hearing what I’m saying. I’m saying that Qualcomm historically has supported more advanced 4g and 5g standards that allow them to achieve faster modem rates. Whether that’s true today I’m not sure, but it was definitely true back when Intel was making modems. “Supporting 4g/5g” is meaningless. It matters what bands, what data rates, the sub carrier rates, how many channels you can bond together, etc etc. Take a look at the product briefs of each modem and compare the actual “supported features” and it’s a lot more specific than just “5g” and certain bands, for instance.

>You’re not hearing what I’m saying.

You are saying Qualcomm doesn't have competition because Qualcomm make the best modem and others making worst product cant compete?

Google certainly tortured me and everyone else I knew who had a Pixel 6 (or Pro) phone, you would randomly lose cellular and WiFi and they would not recover on their own, necessitating a reboot or toggling airplane mode to get back online.

The Exynos chipset is cursed, Samsung only ships it in markets where performance is a lower priority than price, hence not shipping Exynos in the US outside the Google Pixel whitelabel relationship.

> hence not shipping Exynos in the US

I thought it was primarily because of some patent/royalty dispute with Qualcomm?

And/or it not having support for CDMA which was not relevant outside of the US. Now that it’s not an issue I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung would transition to Exynos eventually (they are already apparently selling some models).

Google's Pixel handsets have worse modem performance than similar flagship Samsungs sold in the US, as even Samsung won't sell their underperforming Exynos chipsets in their flagship phones in the USA.

Exynos 5G New Radio chipsets got really bad with the Pixel 6 series, where the phone randomly loses cell signal and WiFi at the same time in areas with strong signal, and the only way to get back online is to put the phone in airplane mode or reboot the phone, sometimes neither works though.

"We're disinclined to acquiesce to your request.

Means 'no'."

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