Owning some OFDMA

US wireless technology vendor Qualcomm is to acquire Bedminster, NJ-based Flarion Technologies, a developer of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex Access (OFDMA) technology and the inventor of FLASH-OFDM technology for mobile broadband Internet protocol (IP) services.

Qualcomm will pay approximately $600 million for the company. It may also pay an additional $205 million in the form of cash and Qualcomm stock conditional upon the company achieving certain milestones over the next few years.

"We believe CDMA will provide the most advanced, spectrally efficient wide area wireless networks for the foreseeable future, but with Flarion we can now more effectively support operators who prefer an OFDMA or hybrid OFDM/CDMA track for differentiating their services,” said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm.

Completion of the acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions, is expected later this year.