US : Qualcomm announced that it will enable a dramatic reduction in the cost of WCDMA (UMTS) mobile broadband handsets with the introduction of Qualcomm's new cost-effective Mobile Station Modem MSM, MSM6246 HSDPA and MSM6290 HSUPA chipsets. The products, sampling now, are designed to enable devices that break new price barriers for HSDPA and HSUPA handsets.

The two chipsets also feature new power-saving features that will enable better performance and longer battery life, with standby time of more than 37 days. "With more than 140 mobile operators in 65 countries now offering commercial HSPA services, mobile broadband is quickly gaining economies of scale," said Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer of the GSMA. "We are pleased to see the mobile ecosystem making HSPA ever more affordable, enabling more and more people to enjoy high-speed access to multimedia services while on the move." "HSDPA is on its way to becoming a mass-market technology, and we feel HSUPA will follow a similar curve as more users realize the possibilities that mobile broadband unlocks," said Dr. Nikolai Dobberstein, head of products and new businesses, Maxis.

"We are very excited about the game-changing products that Qualcomm brings to the table, helping ensure that price is not a barrier to the user adoption of mobile broadband via HSDPA and HSUPA." "The proliferation of HSPA is helping drive the growth of popular Internet and social networking applications in the mobile space, and we have made great strides in ensuring that these technologies are accessible to a wide base of consumers," said Alex Katouzian, vice president of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. "With these latest additions to our roadmap, we are working closely with our device manufacturer customers, carrier partners and the GSMA to actively help drive down the costs for new mobile broadband handsets that users everywhere are increasingly demanding." The MSM6246 chipset will support 3.6 Mbps HSDPA for advanced services such as high-resolution video downloads and Web 2.0 browsing. The MSM6290 HSUPA chipset supports speeds up to 7.2 Mbps on the downlink and 5.76 Mbps on the uplink, tapping into the surge in popularity of applications such as social networking and user-generated multimedia sharing.

The two products are drop- in replacements for each other, with power management, software and RF compatibility. Both products interface with the RTR6285(TM) single-chip CMOS transceiver. The MSM6246 HSDPA chipset features: -- 3 megapixel camera support -- QVGA video playback -- Integrated Assisted-GPS and high-speed USB support The MSM6290 HSUPA chipset features: -- 5 megapixel camera support -- WQVGA video playback -- Integrated Assisted-GPS, 3D graphics and high-speed USB support In addition, the two products both feature 10mm x 10mm package sizes that represent a nearly 50 percent reduction in package footprint from previous- generation baseband solutions. This dramatic size reduction will enable next- generation mobile broadband devices that are fully featured, slim, stylish and powerful in functionality. Qualcomm also offers a family of Qualcomm Single Chip(TM) (QSC(TM)) products that integrate baseband modem, radio transceiver, multimedia processor and power management functionality into a single chip. The QSC products, which include solutions for WCDMA (UMTS) and HSDPA, will help drive down prices for UMTS broadband devices even further and deliver additional