April 15, 2008- Several mobile providers have announced a new found partnership whose goal is to provide a better framework for mobile networks that will establish a more predictable and more transparent maximum cost they will spend on connectivity options for users such as LTE. The companies that will be working cooperation to accomplish this goal are Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, NextWave Wireless, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson. They have also invited interested parties to join them.

What this all means is that the companies are agreeing on maximum royalty rates and to flexible licensing agreements. The maximum royalty rate that all agree is reasonable will be a single-digit percentage of the sales price. The framework that these companies are working together to agree upon will offer a balance to the prevailing business conditions and hopefully lead to the widespread adoption of LTE as a standard for all connections.

In reference to a previous article posted at Handcellphone.com, “LTE, or Long Term Evolution, is a project under the Third Generation Partnership Project whose goal was to improve on UMTS standards. Additionally, such connections seek to improve the efficiency of users connections, lower costs, improve overall services, make use of new spectrum opportunities to reach more users with better service, and to better integrate with other already existing standards” (WiMax vs. LTE).

If other cell phone service providers and cell phone manufacturers get on board with this cooperation effort, it seems to be that case that more mobile devices will be running off the same connection standard and that this will lead to more service in more places for more customers. Such cooperation on the part of mobile companies will be beneficial for the providers as well as the customers.

Source: Nokia.com