As the fight for 4G supremacy continues, seven industry heavy weights have joined forces to set up rules for licensing LTE technology, but Qualcomm is missing.

The companies on board are Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, Nextwave Wireless, Ericsson, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson. They are all committed to a framework for maximum aggregate costs for licensing intellectual property rights that relate to LTE (Long Term Evolution), according to a statement.

"We want to increase the confidence for the roll-out of LTE," said Gustav Brismark, vice president for patent strategies and portfolio management at Ericsson.

Membership is open to anyone, and there have been discussions with other vendors as well.

But so far Qualcomm has decided to not get involved, according to Richard Tinkler, European marketing manager and public relations director at Qualcomm.

"You have to bear in mind that we are members of ETSI and NGMN, and we support a market-based approach to innovation," said Tinkler.

The real reason is Qualcomm's support for Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), according to Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

"It is pushing UMB as an alternative to LTE, at least in the short term. So right now it's not backing LTE," said Milanesi.

She still sees the announcement as step in the right direction. "It might heat things up a bit, still there are more questions than answers," said Milanesi.

The companies support that a reasonable maximum aggregate royalty level for LTE in handsets is a single-digit percentage of the sales price.

For notebooks, with embedded LTE capabilities, they support a single-digit dollar amount as the maximum aggregate royalty level, according to a statement

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.