Let me repeat that again – Qualcomm WILL participate in India’s BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) spectrum auction, as speculated before.
The company said it wants a piece of the 2.3 GHz band to facilitate the deployment of TD-LTE. TD-LTE is compatible with 3G WCDMA/HSPA and EV-DO, and will enable a seamless broadband experience for consumers within India and while roaming globally. Qualcomm says this technology is best suited to complement current and upcoming 3G deployments and address India’s growing demand for high bandwidth broadband services.
If it wins the auction, Qualcomm’s idea is to secure Indian partners to create a TD-LTE infrastructure and device ecosystem. The venture strategy is still in making, but Qualcomm’s end goal is only to attract some operator (or more of them), build a network and eventually exit the venture. They are not in the operator business, and all they want from this are license fees and eventually some (actually that’s tons of) chips and equipment sold to the ecosystem.
It sounds like a great plan and I’m looking forward to see whether it can work like it was planned. We’ll certainly get back to you as soon as we hear something on this front…