For months now, my buddy Mike Houghton and the North American GSM Alliance have been scratching their heads trying to figure out how Qualcomm, Lucent and the CDMA crowd have made such inroads with Congress and the Clinton administration on this seemingly esoteric issue called 3G.
Now, the GSM Alliance is not about to let Qualcomm make monkeys of them all. But the Qualcomm lobbying machine is in high gear. Messrs. Kelley, Neihardt, Lazarus & Co. are on-message. Doors are opening. People in high places are listening. The Red Sox are winning.
First, there were the Morella letters. Then, the Morella hearing. Next, the White House meetings. Out of nowhere, a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing popped up. Suddenly, FCC Chairman Bill Kennard and State Department assistant secretary Vonya McCann are debriefing reporters on negotiations with their European counterparts on 3G. Stories are beginning to appear prominently in RCR and elsewhere on 3G. 3G this and 3G that.
Sen. Hollings (D-S.C.) and Rep. Matsui (D-Calif.) decide to send letters to USTR’s Charlene Barshefsky on 3G. Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), for his part, weighs in with a Senate resolution intended to promote CDMA harmony in the world. But in the end, the final product draws the loudest applause from the GSM folks instead.
Barshefsky answers the call with tough talk from the administration on 3G. Cross us, she warns the EU, and we’ll take you to court. That is, the court of global commerce-the World Trade Organization.
Like Houghton, I am amazed and in awe of the brilliant CDMA lobbying campaign. How do they do it?
For sure, it’s not a cut-and-dry made-in-America proposition. Sweden’s L.M. Ericsson, Finland’s Nokia Corp. and Canada’s Nortel, despite being foreigners, employ lots of American workers and contribute to the U.S. economy.
And Motorola, the largest U.S. mobile phone and pager manufacturer and a major overseas vendor, has distanced itself from the Qualcomm contingent.
So then, why is Qualcomm’s 3G story playing so well on Capitol Hill and at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?
Why? I’ll tell you why: bananas.
It’s not convergence or chip rate or backward computability or IPRs that enticed U.S. policy makers to foray into the 3G firestorm. Oh sure, those things are important. But it’s really bananas that have the Clinton White House going ape these days-banana import rules to be precise. So when Qualcomm lobbyists came calling with 3G complaints against the EU, U.S. policy makers already were primed. The EU had crossed the proverbial line in the sand. It had to be stopped.
Today, bananas. Tomorrow, mobile phones. The horror.
