Wireless Technology

TD LTE is never ever promoted by Qualcomm till today anywhere in the world. Qualcomm has been promoting FDD LTE in 700 Mhz and 2.6 Ghz band. That is a public news.

The TD LTE based chipsets are yet to be launched by any company in the semiconductor industry leave alone Qualcomm as the IPR for TD LTE is predominantly Chinese based.

USA and Europe are betting on FDD LTE and that is expected for bulk adoption by telcos in 2013 with devices in bulk manufacturing. FDD LTE may be launched first in USA and Europe later.

Global telcos are considering LTE (FDD) as it is true broadband and it has the same 3 technology roots and pillars of WiMax conforming to ITU's recognized standards i.e. 802.16e and 802.16m i.e IP, OFDMA, and MIMO.

WiMax is the father of LTE as it had all 4G features such as IP, MIMO and OFDMA and TDD access.

Qualcomm announcing TD LTE interest is a way of their accepting that QCOM has lost out in the battle for supremacy for mobile Internet access and wireless broadband through their globally promoted campaign for “3G for broadband” and “LTE Rel 8 for wireless broadband”. I do not know how TD LTE can suddenly be promoted by Qualcomm as a suitable technology for broadband and that too in India only when their IPR focus is on LTE Rel.8 (FDD LTE) all over the globe.

It is rather strange for Qualcomm to promote TD LTE for introduction only in India when all over the globe Qualcomm has been promoting LTE Rel.8 (FDD).

India needs to adopt a mature, scalable and truly global technology like WiMax which is real 4G that has become a globally, affordable technology and has a robust eco system of 300 devices and 500 NWs and covering a population of 800 million all over the globe in APAC, Europe, USA and South America, Africa and the Middle East.

Indian Operators are mature enough to take wise decisions and they are rich enough with cash to bid and win the spectrum for BWA on WiMax.

I am concerned that this move by Qualcomm, if they emerge as winners in the bid, may result in the hoarding of precious spectrum. Thus India would lose an opportunity to serve 20 million subs on a slot of 20Mhz by 2012. India cannot afford losing such precious resource of spectrum for immature, untested and unproven technologies. India can ill afford that at this stage of economic growth.

All Indian operators have tested and trialed WiMax and they understand the potential of WiMax for broadband services growth in India.

Let India not be used as experimentation ground and in my view this is a bad intent to slow down the growth of broadband using wireless technology like WiMax.

Broadband alone would drive India towards a digital networked economy and make it most competitive nation.

Indian operators need to know this and act wisely for promoting the services for broadband on a mature technology and the government should be watchful against such bad intent of hoarding of spectrum for an immature and untested technology with no silicon support, no devices support etc..

(Sumber: CS Rao, Chairman, WiMax Forum)