Apple is believed to already pay the royalty rate to Samsung in Europe. It pays through Intel, which acquired Infineon and thus the producer of the current GSM iPhones chipset.

Apple also said that Samsung had deceived ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) as it helped the development of 3G standards. The Korean company seems to have introduced its patented technology into this standard and had revealed its work only five years later, provoking a patent ambush, according to Apple. Legally, the Korean firm was forced to unveil its assertions before the finalization of the standards and it may be in trouble. This happens mainly because it was trying to use what was considered as an essential patent for a quite excessive amount.

A well known example was Rambus. It was forced to change its patent policy in order to prevent any standard-related ambush in the future. Although it had not pressed to include its own technology in a standard, the European Commission insisted on this change of policies in 2009.

Samsung is also suing Apple under French law, where a judge could force the Korean company to use a particular price in case talks broke down. However, Apple said this had not happened yet. It added that its license in France was perfect.

Samsung virtually disputed all the assertions and challenged them before the legal team of Apple had made its case. The Korean company tried to demonstrate that Apple obscured its suppliers of components and that ten companies provided the 3G chipset used in the GSM iPhone. Apple claimed that all parts were coming from Intel. As Samsung said, Apple was aware of the existence of the patents and should have struck a deal four years ago for the first model of iPhone, but had no intention to get a license.

Samsung said to have had a FRAND offer to Apple but it was denied as Apple did not believe this fit. It is not clear if it was about the 2.4 percent figure.

It is not known how sincere Apple could be, but if its allegation is true, Samsung might have a weak case. Samsung is known to be sitting on the patents and to be selective in enforcing them. A menace of a possible ban on 3G iPhones and iPads is believed as a bargain to counter the successful early ban of Apple on Galaxy phones mainly in the Netherlands, but also in other areas of Europe.

The major obstacle to Apple would be price. Without considering cost as a problem, the total amount of customers intending to buy an iPhone would jump to 53 percent. The recent survey is however representative of a small part of Chinese society, because most people are relatively poor and affluence is concentrated mainly around a few cities big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Main competition for Apple is represented by Nokia. Although negligible on the smartphone market of the United States, a quarter of the 3G buyers in the Chinese survey claimed they would buy a Nokia phone next. Primary advantages brought by Nokia would be, according to the survey, reception, reputation, service, price and battery life. On the other hand, the iPhone is preferred for the interface, Internet and media features, as well as for social status.

Fring is already working on cellulars but is application-specific. Apple’s FaceTime is limited to iOS devices and to Wi-Fi networks. Apple declared to support video chat applications using 3G, Fring being included. Many iPhone live streaming applications, such as Ustream, Qik or Justin.tv are already able to transmit video content over 3G through a front camera, but usually are only one-way.

The application has already been presented to Google and Apple and waits for a soon approval. Yahoo Messenger and video chat included have always been free.

The auto maker uses a custom system on iPad, MB Advantage, to speed up operations like credit applications, checks on marketing campaigns or inspections of lease turn-ins. The company has received extremely positive feedback and now intends to push iPads out to all its US dealers. It also intends to upgrade MB Advantage to make it capable of allowing some documents to be signed on-screen. This feature should be operational by the end of this month.

Besides these free calls Skype-to-Skype, users have access to low cost calls to mobile phones or landlines. The application is able to facilitate synchronization of Skype contacts with the native address book using an Android phone. Typical Skype functions like instant messaging of the ability to receive calls through Skype account online phone numbers are also available now.

Tests for Skype using Android 2.1 and 2.2 have been successfully run on a series of Android-based phones including HTC’s Legend and Desire, Google’s Nexus One and Motorola’s Droid. A whole range of languages is supported, including French, German, English, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, Spanish and Russian.

While prepaid data is already available for the iPad, it is not known if or when it would become available for stand-alone modems.

Three portables that have existed before without 3G will come along with the new option for prepaid data. The leader of the group is Acer that will launch the TimelineX 1830 with an 11.6-inch display and an ultra-low voltage processor Core i3, 2GB of RAM and a hard drive of 250GB. Its performance is expected to be superior to most netbooks and the price is set at $240 with a two-year contract.

Acer equally comes with the Aspire One 532h, which accommodates the lower end. This is a basic netbook with a 1.66GHz Atom N450 processor and a ten-inch display. Its battery life is reaching four hours. AT&T has priced it at $40 with a contract and $450 contract-free.

The same level is addressed by a model of the Inspiron Mini 10, which primarily uses the 1,280×720 resolution on its ten-inch display and features specifications similar to Acer’s netbook. It will also cost $40 with a contract.

All plans and options are already available.

The price may also be the most conservative. ARMDevices give a price of 799 euros, which means $1,025, while the British retailer Expansys has listed it at £680 ($1,047 equivalent). Such prices make the Galaxy Tab comparable to the 64GB 3G iPad, which is the more expensive model of Apple.

There are chances for the prices to drop, some of the pricing being provisional. It is known that European pricing is typically higher. As the German launch is scheduled in about two weeks, there are small chances for the prices to change by that moment. Such expensive devices could create real problems for Samsung, as Apple would make the difference through price. It is true that the iPad lacks the front and back cameras and the card slot as well, but it is also true that Apple’s 3G models are far less expensive. Under the circumstances, Vodafone, O2 and other European providers may be forced to make a necessity from the subsidizing of the tablet, in order to bring its price at a competitive level.

Recently, SK Telecom has also promised to build 15,000 Wi-Fi areas in the country; this means that the initial plans have been expanded by about 50 percent. SK also claims that sometime in 2011, a next-generation LTE network will be unveiled too. The carrier’s calls will be ultimately pushed on to VoIP thanks to the 4G access; this could also unify cell standards in South Korea, making it possible for Apple’s iPhone and other similar devices to run on all Korean networks, with no need of any additional separate hardware.

The just released standard will optimize voice-bearer routing. The forum has also issued host APIs for LTE devices.

Nineteen companies are members of the VoLGA Forum. Among them, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Cisco and HTC are the most important.

Many efforts are being made in order to standardize both calls and SMS on the LTE data network. They include the One Voice initiative of Verizon, AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens and Samsung.

Business customers can already have the 3G/4G USB 250U modem, but the full release will take place somewhere in mid-July. The modem is available for free, after the $50 mail-in rebate, $50 in instant savings and on a two-year plan. This plan is priced at $60 per month, including unlimited data on the Sprint 4G network and also 5GB of data for Sprint’s 3G network. The 4G network from Sprint is available in 33 markets across the USA.