It's been hinted at before, but now The Wall Street Journal is reporting that AT&T has a deal with Broadcom that is similar to the one Verizon Wireless announced a few weeks ago. The news follows Monday's announcement that the White House did not veto the ITC's decision to ban all Qualcomm-chipset enabled phones from entering the U.S. The ITC ruled earlier that some of Qualcomm's chipset technology infringed on patents held by Broadcom.
While the rumored AT&T-Broadcom deal is not surprising, it's also not as important as a rumored Sprint-Broadcom deal would be. But Sprint says it does not have a deal with Broadcom. Instead, the carrier has a workaround that it claims will enable it to continue to import Qualcomm-powered handsets. Verizon Wireless inked a deal worth $200 million with Broadcom in order to continue importing the Qualcomm-powered phones.
For more on AT&T's rumored Broadcom deal:
- read this article from the WSJ (sub. req.)