Get Ready for UMB

Ok, here's a new acronym for you-Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB). Qualcomm has provided more information about its next-gen mobile strategy. Ultra Mobile Broadband will become the marketing term for CDMA EVDO Rev. C. Maybe having an acronym will help Qualcomm compete with WiMAX and LTE in the next-gen battle. Qualcomm said UMB can theoretically support mobile data speeds up to 280Mbps, when using MIMO and scalable bandwidths up to 20 MHz. Similar to claims we hear from WiMAX citing 75Mbps, nobody is sure what the real throughput will be until large scale commercial networks get deployed. Qualcomm said it will begin running demos of the technology in its labs in the spring. It seems UMB will leverage both Qualcomm's heritages in wireless communications and its recently acquired FLASH-OFDM portfolio from Flarion. Be it UMB, 4M, or WWAN/WLAN/WPAN integration onto a SOC, Qualcomm's next-gen ambition is clear-Qualcomm will never be an afterthought in the mobile/wireless industry, never.