Report says UMB could lose out in 4G race

At first glance, you might think things aren't looking too rosy for Qualcomm, the chipset maker / patent holder extraordinaire that has a penchant for suing, getting sued, and developing "standards" that run counter to popular support. After all, the Broadcom patent infringement suit is dragging on with no end in sight -- and now this, a report from ABI Research analysts suggesting that its answer to LTE and WiMax in the 4G race, Ultra Mobile Broadband, could come up short. The problem isn't that UMB's performance sucks -- quite the contrary actually, with speeds allegedly topping out at 288Mbps downstream -- but rather that no major carrier has signed up to implement it. Indeed, CDMA stalwarts like Sprint and Verizon have both turned to alternatives for their next-gen networks, and it certainly doesn't help that LTE has the GSM Association's full blessing and support. Then again, Qualcomm claims that it'll be doing plenty of royalty collectin' regardless of what 4G tech wins out, so we're not ready to prep the obit just yet.