Are you ready for a $99 no contract smart phone?

It could happen very soon if Broadcom gets any competition, which is likely. The company has introduced a new smart phone on  a chip which is something of the holy grail for phone chip makers. Toss in a few competitors, and the race to zero in a price war will go into full swing. Combine that with volume manufacturing and a free OS like Android, and the $99 price point is very possible.

Built with an integrated ARM11 processor and capable of running Google’s Android and Microsoft Windows Mobile, the BCM21553 baseband chip could pave the way for cheaper but much more sophisticated handsets. For example, it will let vendors add video support up to HVGA quality and an 8 megapixel camera. Other features include 5.8Mbps upstream and 7.2Mbps downstream bandwidth. (The Inquirer)