SEP Essentials

In Andrew Myles’ guest post ( Convergence and Competition - A Tale of Two Standards Part 4 - Guest Post by Andrew Myles ), he discussed the six companies that have failed to respond to ISO’s request to confirm whether or not they will grant a FRAND license for their Wi-Fi 6 SEPs.  I recently took a look into the Chinese ISO holdout Huawei ( Convergence and Competition - A Tale of Two Standards Part 5: Huawei ) and now want to focus on the "Nordic companies" [1] that are ISO h

Way back when I first started this blog, I interviewed Andrew Myles  (see Interview with Andrew Myles - Part 1  and Interview with Andrew Myles - Part 2 ). As I noted in those posts, Andrew was a contributor to the IEEE 802.11 Working Group for more than twenty years and has also spent a great deal of time in recent years working to promote peaceful coexistence between Wi-Fi, cellular and other radio based telecommunications standards as the Chair of the IEEE 802.11 Coexisten

For years the cellular and Wifi standards peacefully co-existed with different uses (voice vs data) and different technological strengths (see, Convergence and Competition – A Tale of Two Standards Part 1 (the Early Years: Peaceful Co-Existence) ( sepessentials.com ) ).  But over time, the technologies used in the standards, and the applications for which the standards are used, have converged (see, Convergence and Competition – A Tale of Two Standards Part 2 (Convergence of

In Convergence and Competition – A Tale of Two Standards Part 1 (the Early Years: Peaceful Co-Existence) ( sepessentials.com ) , I discussed the early peaceful co-existence of two of the world’s most important telecommunications standards, cellular and WiFi, in the early days of each standard.   In those days, WiFi and cellular carried different types of information (data vs voice) using different protocols (IP vs circuit switched) on different portions of the spectrum (unlic

Two of the world’s most important telecommunications standards - cellular and WiFi - have gone from complementary coexistence to escalating competition with each other.  At the same time, the participants in cellular and WiFi standard development, the technology itself, and the applications of the technology, have begun converging.  At stake is the lucrative IoT market – a winner take all market that does not need the same bells and whistles as smart phones or even connected

I recently attended the Global Standards Leadership Conference organized by Justus Baron (Northwestern University), Kirti Gupta (Cornerstone Research, previously at Qualcomm), and Tim Pohlmann (LexisNexis® IPlytics) which took place on June 13, 2024, at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business.  It was an interesting and well-attended conference with a number of different panels and a keynote speaker from UC-Berkeley.  Here are some of the more notewort

Whether described as a multiverse (the catch phrase of the day) or as an ecosystem (my preferred word), in order to accurately frame any discussion of SEP licensing, it is important to understand the three primary levels, as well as some of the many sublevels, of that ecosystem. [1]   This post is a deeper dive into the cellular ecosystem but, because that ecosystem is similar for many other telecommunications and networking standards, it also serves to inform discussion of t

I recently posted about 5G, Stagnation and Innovation ( sepessentials.com ) , and wanted to take a deeper dive into one of the issues that was buried in my footnotes.  In particular, I am still floored by the number of patents claimed to be essential to the 5G standard, particularly given that 5G is essentially a mashup of previously existing technologies with some tinkering and updates around the edges.  I can only conclude that the 5G patent space (and maybe the 5G standard

Let’s talk stagnation.  I’ve noticed lately that the rollout of 5G seems to have stalled.  Yes, when I am in certain big cities my phone tells me I’m on 5G.  But other than in those big cities, my phone always seems to be on 4G/LTE.  Now, I know the arguments as to why 5G is supposed to be better.  I know that 5G is supposed to be configured to natively carry data and so should be better, faster and more efficient at data transfers.   I know that in one of its incarnations –

When I arrived in New Zealand, I needed a phone that had a New Zealand phone number. I could have just bought a new SIM card and put it into my US phone. That is what my daughter did. Like most teenagers these days, she keeps in touch with her friends via Insta, Snap, etc. rather than by dialing or texting a telephone number. So, she was ok with having only a single phone in which she can use a New Zealand phone number when she is in NZ (via her NZ phone number SIM card)