Qualcomm’s business model may be under attack, but its influence over cellular standards and technology development remains undented. A Qualcomm principal engineer, Wanshi Chen, has been elected as chair of the 3GPP group defining 5G standards, at a critical time for the mobile technology process. Chen was chosen as chair of the 3GPP RAN Working Group 1, at a meeting of the group in Prague, Czech Republic, last week. The RAN1 is responsible for specifying the physical layer of the radio interface for 5G New Radio. As Lorenzo Casaccia, VP of technical standards at Qualcomm, put it in a blog post, Chen will be leading the effort for “the most fundamental design aspects of the air interface, and the advancements it…