Qualcomm QTP-6800

Year: 2006
Prototype level: Platform
Codename: N/A

Overview

The Qualcomm QTP-6800 was a development and test handset built around Qualcomm’s MSM6800 platform, a chipset generation aimed at the rapidly evolving CDMA2000 and EV-DO market. Unlike a retail phone, the QTP-6800 was intended as a working reference platform for engineers developing and testing network equipment and mobile devices. Its existence in professional network-testing software gives a useful glimpse into that role: the handset was supported by TEMS Investigation and could be used for measurements and diagnostics on CDMA2000 1xRTT and EV-DO networks.

The MSM6800 was designed for CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. A, bringing substantially higher data rates to networks that had already evolved beyond basic 1xRTT service. Qualcomm’s reference hardware allowed the company’s chipset technology to be evaluated in an actual handset form before similar capabilities appeared in a wider range of commercial devices. The QTP-6800 therefore sits somewhere between a prototype phone and a development tool, it was not intended to become a product in its own right, but to provide a practical platform for Qualcomm’s technology and for the engineers working with it.

Its inclusion in historical TEMS device lists is particularly useful evidence of the phone’s purpose. The QTP-6800 is explicitly identified there as a Qualcomm device supporting EV-DO Rev. A, CDMA2000 and CDMA 1xRTT, with Qualcomm’s own MSM6800-based software platform. This makes it a good example of the hardware that normally remained behind the scenes while the technologies eventually found their way into commercial handsets and data devices.