The U.S. International Trade Commission has issued a ban on U.S. imports of new cell phones containing certain Qualcomm semiconductors, which may include upcoming models such as the Motorola RAZR 2, but will not affect the iPhone. The commission has said it was banning the phones because the chips, which are found in 3G phones using EV-DO and WCDMA technology, violate a patent held by Broadcom Corp. Apple’s iPhone does not fall under the ban, because it uses quad-band GSM and EDGE technologies, and does not use any Qualcomm chips. iPhone carrier AT&T will be affected by the ban, as will Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless. Eighty percent of Verizon Wireless phones sold use the technology in question.
Charles Starrett was a senior editor at iLounge. He's been covering the iPod, iPhone, and iPad since their inception. He has written numerous articles and reviews, and his work has been featured in multiple publications.