Qualcomm Chief Welcomes iPhone’s Spread

Paul E. Jacobs, chief executive of Qualcomm, the maker of chips for mobile phones, insisted it was pure coincidence that he found himself within a few blocks of where the iPhone was introduced to France on Wednesday.But though the iPhone, the cellphone-media player from Apple, has no Qualcomm components, Mr. Jacobs generously gave it credit for making consumers more eager for third-generation cellphone networks.The 3G technology — which Qualcomm designs and licenses — allows cellphone Internet browsing that is comparable in speed to broadband on a desktop computer. But the iPhone, which the French operator Orange put on sale Wednesday, does not support 3G.The current version, now available in Britain, Germany, France and the United States, uses a technology called Edge that speeds second-generation network data transfers. Apple has already said it intends to offer a 3G iPhone in the future.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that a really positive effect of the iPhone was to focus mainstream people on the idea of using their device for data,” Mr. Jacobs, who is based in San Diego, said during a visit to Paris to see customers and government officials. “But it also caused mainstream consciousness that 3G is really a good thing to have because it will make your experience better.
“Qualcomm could have spent huge amounts of money advertising 3G and not gotten the point across as well as the iPhone has,” he said.Although Orange had said that its iPhone plans would offer unlimited Internet access, the company disclosed clear limits Wednesday. The iPhone cannot be used with Internet phone services like Skype; it cannot be used as a modem for a personal computer and it cannot be used to connect to peer-to-peer networks.

Orange also reserved the right to limit subscribers who download more than 500 megabytes of data a month. It said it would sell an unlocked version of the iPhone for 649 euros ($950), with an additional 100-euro unlocking fee, along with a 399-euro model with a two-year Orange contract.Simon Treille, the first to buy an iPhone in France at the Champs-Élysées Orange store, said it would change the mobile Internet. “It’s like a PC screen but you always have it in your pocket,” said Mr. Treille, who works at jechange.fr, a Web site for comparison shopping.

Despite the hundreds of billions of euros that European companies and governments invested in 3G at the turn of the century, it is only now beginning to attract wide use, a situation that has led some to call the transition from GSM, the 2G technology, a failure.But Mr. Jacobs pointed to many signs of success for 3G. Some operators, like Orange and Telstra, in Australia, are reporting that for the first time, the revenue they generate from data use is more than that from text messaging, for instance.Worldwide, the company says, 60 million 3G phones were sold last year, and it estimates that the number will grow to 90 million by the end of this year.

Hewlett-Packard recently signed on to offer Gobi, a new Qualcomm design that puts two kinds of 3G networking into one for use in laptops. Mr. Jacobs said to expect a series of similar announcements from other computer makers.Mr. Jacobs also said that he felt “pretty good” about the progress of the company’s legal battles with Nokia over royalty payments and was confident about Qualcomm’s antitrust case before the European Commission.In October, the European Commission opened a formal investigation into whether Qualcomm was overcharging its business partners for using patents that are essential to 3G.