"Sixtypercentt of teens are on their parents' plan," said Julie Ask, a mobile communications analyst for Jupiter Research.
Philip Redman, wireless mobile communications analyst for Boston's Yankee Group, says, "[Qualcomm] rolled out not only a technology argument, saying that their technology was going to be 30 times better than the competition's, but they also said 'ours is American technology,' " ratcheting up the debate into a virtual trade war.
"Most important of all, has been the astonishingly lackluster performance of the Western European market," said Ben Wood, an analyst for mobile communications at Gartner.
The decision to back Clearwire indicates that Intel is still anxious to expand its role in mobile computing and communications, analysts said.
Tero Kuittinen, an analyst at the mobile communications consulting firm Alekstra, agreed.
"If you think about what the market could be from an advertising perspective, it is a dream," said Linda Barrabee, an analyst for wireless mobile communications at the Yankee Group, a research firm in Boston.
"Three years ago Nokia's position in emerging markets looked impenetrable, but low-cost chip sets and growing scale has helped a number of Asian manufacturers to price aggressively and seize market share," said Geoff Blaber, an analyst at the mobile communications research firm CCS Insight in London.
Ian Fogg, senior analyst at Jupiter Research, said that as well as mobile communications, Apple is pushing forward in areas such as home entertainment.
"What is happening is inevitable," said Walter Piecyk, a communications analyst at the research firm Pali Research who studies the mobile phone market.
But China Unicom has failed to follow through on the deal, prompting some analysts to suggest that it might opt instead for a competing interface technology, global system for mobile communications (GSM), supported by Nokia nok or Ericsson ericy.
Clearly, fixed and mobile communications are converging.
