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Telecom—UC telecom center expected to draw new firms



Internet: Program Provides Funding for Development Of Online Wireless Devices

A newly announced state research center dedicated to the wireless Internet is sure to fuel San Diego’s wireless telecom industry, local observers say.

The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at UCSD is bound to draw high-tech companies to the region, predicted Kevin Carroll of AeA, a trade group formerly known as the American Electronics Association.

“A lot of clustering is going to happen,” said Carroll, executive director of AeA’s San Diego council, evoking an image of many companies bunched closely together.

“A tremendous boon” is how Joel Holliday, vice president of Applied Micro Circuits Corp., summed up the center, saying it will become a “magnet” for professors, students and potential high-tech employees.

Over the next decade the region “could see a redoubling of startup activity,” as academic researchers mature and start their own companies, said Marco Thompson, incoming president of the San Diego Telecom Council.

Gov. Gray Davis announced earlier this month that UCSD and UC Irvine would split $100 million in state money to start the joint institute, to be headquartered here.

The announcement came with predictions of people wearing wireless cardiac monitors, and of sensor-equipped bridges that can give reports of how an earthquake has affected them.

Matching the state contribution will be $200 million from a variety of sources, including more than 40 high-tech companies in San Diego and Orange counties.

AMCC will contribute $10 million to the center. Qualcomm Inc. will put up $15 million and Ericsson Inc. will donate $12 million.

Leap Wireless International, Inc. will also support the new center, said Chairman and CEO Harvey White. He declined to give a dollar amount for a financial contribution.

Finding uses for wireless technology, rather than developing technology as an end in itself, is “critical” for the center, White said.

“You want to make sure your research at the end of the day is going to meet a market need,” he said, adding Leap could help test products and gather opinions from their potential users.

The center will be multidisciplinary, and its researchers will approach wireless telecom applications in the environment and civil infrastructure, transportation, medicine, genomics and even the fine arts.

The university institute is bound to spread the reputation, said the telecom council’s Thompson.

San Diego is one of three or four world telecom capitals, yet, “I’m not sure the rest of the world knows that,” he said.

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