Editing Qualcomm (section)

====Early history====
In mid-1985, Qualcomm was hired by [[Hughes Aircraft]] to provide research and testing for a satellite network proposal to the [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC).<ref name="Mock2005" />{{RP|38}} The following year, Qualcomm filed its first CDMA patent (No. 4,901,307).<ref name="Mock2005" /> This patent established Qualcomm's overall approach to CDMA<ref name="Mock2005" /> and later became one of the most frequently cited technical documents in history.<ref name="BlaxillEckardt2009">{{Cite book |last1=Blaxill |first1=Mark |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JO6kA0hebJIC&pg=PA86 |title=The Invisible Edge: Taking Your Strategy to the Next Level Using Intellectual Property |last2=Eckardt |first2=Ralph |publisher=Portfolio |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-59184-237-8 |access-date=May 7, 2020 |archive-date=August 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819132954/https://books.google.com/books?id=JO6kA0hebJIC&pg=PA86 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{RP|84}} The project with the FCC was scrapped in 1988, when the FCC told all twelve vendors that submitted proposals to form a joint venture to create a single proposal.<ref name="Mock2005" />{{RP|38}}

Qualcomm further developed the CDMA techniques for commercial use and submitted them to the [[Cellular Telephone Industries Association]] (CTIA) in 1989 as an alternative to the [[time-division multiple access]] (TDMA) standard for second-generation cell-phone networks.<ref name="Mock2005" />{{RP|49}} A few months later, CTIA officially rejected Qualcomm's CDMA standard<ref name="LeiSlocum2013">{{Cite book |last1=Lei |first1=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LaJFAAAAQBAJ |title=Demystifying Your Business Strategy |last2=Slocum |first2=John W. |date=August 29, 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-26802-1 |pages=101 |access-date=May 7, 2020 |archive-date=August 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819141202/https://books.google.com/books?id=LaJFAAAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> in favor of the more established TDMA standard developed by [[Ericsson]].<ref name="Steinbock2003" /><ref name="bw3">{{Cite news |last=Elstrom |first=Peter |date=June 1, 1997 |title=Qualcomm: Not Exactly An Overnight Success |work=BusinessWeek |url=http://www.businessweek.com/stories/1997-06-01/qualcomm-not-exactly-an-overnight-success |access-date=July 16, 2014 |archive-date=July 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714105001/http://www.businessweek.com/stories/1997-06-01/qualcomm-not-exactly-an-overnight-success |url-status=dead }}</ref>

At the time, CDMA wasn't considered viable in high-volume commercial applications due to the near-far field effect, whereby phones closer to a cell tower with a stronger signal drown out callers that are further away and have a weaker signal.<ref name="Mock2005" />{{RP|54–55,62–65}}<ref name="wsjalpha" /> Qualcomm filed three additional patents in 1989. They were for: a power management system that adjusts the signal strength of each call to adjust for the near-far field effect; a "soft handoff" methodology for transferring callers from one cell-tower to the next; and a variable rate encoder, which reduces bandwidth usage when a caller isn't speaking.<ref name="Mock2005" />{{RP|54–55,62–65}}<ref name="wsjalpha" />