Kyocera mates with Runcom for WiMAX

Handset vendor Kyocera Wireless Corp. announced it will team with chipset maker Runcom Technologies to pursue the high-speed, inexpensive network promise of WiMAX. Kyocera said it will use Runcom’s WiMAX chips in its planned devices.
The companies’ agreement cites the promise of the proverbial “quadruple play” of cable TV, broadband Internet, fixed and mobile telephony as the motivation behind the hookup between the two players.
San Diego-based Kyocera, the 12th largest handset vendor in the world with 1.3 percent market share, faces a shrinking global opportunity to establish itself as a long-term player, a situation faced by most of the other cellphone makers outside the top five global players. The market share available to handset vendors outside the top five has shrunk from 24 percent in 2005 to 19 percent in 2006. Thus, Kyocera’s development work on what some consider “4G” technology, which could disrupt the current paradigm and breath new life into those who succeed at it, may be just what the doctor ordered.
But Kyocera could face a number of its same rivals in the WiMAX space as Nokia Corp. and other major cellphone makers have announced their intention to build WiMAX devices.
Runcom, based in Rishon Lezion, Israel, makes WiMAX chips for devices and base stations.