Trade spat could kill U.S. EV-DO

Could EV-DO wind up as collateral damage? Could be, as a trade dispute between Qualcomm and Broadcom reaches the International Trade Commission. The two companies are grappling over a chip patent, and one possible outcome could be to ban the U.S. importation of phones that use EV-DO chips. Verizon Wireless and Sprint are both completing expensive upgrades to their EV-DO networks and are both spending millions of dollars in ads. A halt to EV-DO would be little short of catastrophic for the companies, which are relying on the technology to push a number of data applications--not the least of which is wireless VoIP.

For more information about the Qualcomm and Broadcom spat:
- check out this coverage from FierceWireless
- read this FierceWireless report

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