Royalty row with Reliance over: Qualcomm

NEW DELHI: CDMA technology pioneer Qualcomm has said it has resolved the royalty row with telecom operators, especially with Reliance Communications, following the reduction in handset prices.

"The royalty row with Reliance is over, in fact is over with the industry," Qualcomm India president Kanwalinder Singh said here on the sidelines of a CDMA event.

"We had earlier said the way to address affordability is to bring the prices of handset down, not change the royalty. We have addressed that problem with final end price coming down to 25 dollars from 40 dollar a year ago," he said.

Singh said as a result of reduction in handset prices nobody was talking about affordable products.

Reliance Communications had earlier said CDMA ecosystem was challenging and high royalty paid to Qualcomm was a hurdle in providing affordable handsets.

US-based CDMA patent holder Qualcomm Inc had been maintaining that the royalty from Indian firms was low and there was no scope for cutting it down further.

Singh said the royalty was a little below five per cent.

On its main customer Reliance Communications' decision to move into GSM telephony also, Singh said, "Reliance has said it wanted to use all technology... it also continues to expand CDMA technology based services throughout the country."

Qualcommm has signed up with Himachal Futuristic for 3G CDMA manufacturing including CDMA2000 subscriber units and modem card products.