The essential role of technology standards
Global standards play a critical role in the world of technology. Standardization is a key step in introducing new interoperable technologies in a commercial market and fostering a culture of innovation. For the wireless communications industry, it lays the foundation of an open and competitive ecosystem with continuous technology advancements that enables massive economies of scale.
Fostering ecosystem growth and expanding into vertical industries
In the wireless and broader vertical industries, global technology standards create value for the entire ecosystem by driving interoperability, helping to meet regulatory requirements, creating new markets, reducing market risks, and continuously improving the technology. Learn how Qualcomm is leading technology standardization across a wide range of industries.
Our strong product and intellectual property portfolios are anchored in our strength in technology standards
We lead and participate in a wide range of global standards and industry organizations thanks to our commitment to research and technology innovations with people based all around the world, such as USA, China, Japan, Korea, India, Europe, Canada and others. This ultimately allows us to build superior and quicker-to-market products and solutions. With our standards contributions, we foster a culture of innovations and make them available to the broader ecosystem.
Examples of global standards and industry organizations that we participate in:
Cellular |
Automotive |
Multimedia |
Wired |
IoT |
Connectivity |
| 3GPP | 5GAA | ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 (MPEG) | MIPI Alliance | 5G-ACIA | IEEE 802.11 |
| O-RAN Alliance | OmniAir Consortium | DASH Industry Forum | JEDEC | UBBA | Wi-Fi Alliance |
| GSMA | SAE | ATSC/DVB | PCI-SIG | Connectivity Standards Alliance | Bluetooth SIG |
Leading cellular standards globally for three decades
Qualcomm has been a key contributor to 3GPP since its inception and now we are leading the work on 5G Advanced and beyond. Our leadership is recently exemplified by the election of Dr. Wanshi Chen to the chair of the 3GPP TSG RAN Plenary.
3GPP is a member-driven organization that relies on cutting-edge research and technology inventions from its members. It follows a consensus-based and technology-driven approach to solve complex technical problems using a distributed workflow. In addition, 3GPP defines conformance test cases that ensure high-performance interoperability that is paramount for ubiquitous connectivity, including roaming and emergency services.
Read this blog series to learn more about 3GPP and get an insider’s perspective on the organization and its vast impact on global cellular standards.
Bringing a rich heritage of video compression innovations
It is expected that 82% of Internet traffic will be video by 2022*, and with emerging video services such as 8K, 360°, and extended reality (XR), this trend is only expected to accelerate. Qualcomm has been a major contributor to video codec standards, including the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), next-gen codecs (e.g., VVC/EVC), implementations of efficient codec and video delivery (e.g., DASH, adaptive streaming), and more ─ all of these making the creation and consumption of rich digital media experiences possible.
*Source: Cisco Annual Internet Report, 2018–2023
Fueling the future of automotive
Connected vehicles will rely on standardized technology across components and interfaces for seamless operation. Whether it is connectivity, active safety, infotainment, or vehicle security, Qualcomm is actively contributing to standardization efforts globally to deliver on the vision of an intelligently connected transportation system, including leading the way for cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X).
Pushing standardized Wi-Fi technology forward in IEEE 802.11 and Wi-Fi Alliance
Wi-Fi has revolutionized the way we access the internet, by literally cutting-the-wire for a wide range of devices—PCs, tablets, TVs, smartphones, and more. Today, Wi-Fi complements cellular connectivity for a wide range of use cases including local broadband access, IOT, extended reality (XR), ranging and sensing.
At Qualcomm, we are leading this technology evolution, pushing the boundaries of what is possible with Wi-Fi, including enhancing network speeds, capacity and latency.
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