Alcatel-Lucent India shifts focus to LTE, Services

Alcatel-Lucent has decided to shift the focus of its R&D unit in Chennai, India from WiMAX to LTE, according to Mr Vivek Mohan, President of Alcatel-Lucent's global services business and Managing Director of Alcatel-Lucent India.

“We are betting big on LTE technology and we are already doing related work at our R&D centre in Chennai. We are training our researchers at the centre. There is not much difference between WiMax and LTE when it comes to developing products and solutions, so the shift is not taking too much of an effort” said Mr Mohan, while Speaking to Business Line.

The Chennai R&D centre is a joint venture Of Alcatel-Lucent & Government owned C-DoT. It was set up in 2005 to develop solutions for WiMax.

In another development, Alcatel-Lucent looks to shift its global services headquarters to India. Alcatel-Lucent will invest $500 million over the next three years in India if the global services unit is moved here.

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BWA auction ends, Infotel wins big, Qualcomm gains

With the auction of BWA spectrum concluding today after 117 rounds over 16 days, the government is set to gain $8.6 billion.

The auction for spectrum today ensured Rs 106,336 crore to the government, over three times the original estimate, with successful bidders for Broadband Wireless Access committing over Rs 38,617 crore.

Internet Service Provider Infotel emerged as the only pan-India winner for BWA spectrum by committing Rs 12,872.52 crore. Aircel won spectrum in 8 circles.

While in the Delhi circle, Infotel and Qualcomm emerged winners, with Infotel's winning bid at Rs 2,241.02 cr, Mumbai also saw the same winners, with Infotel bidding Rs 2,292.95 cr. Bharti and Infotel emerged winners in Maharashtra, with Bharti's winning bid at Rs 915.64 cr.

Qualcomm has won one, 20 MHz slot of spectrum in the circles of Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala. Its winning bid was INR4912.54 Crore or approximately USD1.045bn.

Qualcomm said that it anticipates the Government of India will formally approve results of the BWA Auction shortly. The company will soon announce its Indian partners in compliance with the applicable Indian Foreign Direct Investment regulations and will work with its partners towards demonstrating LTE (TD-LTE) technology with the goal of creating LTE infrastructure and device ecosystem.

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BWA auction revenue reaches $5.43 bn

The Indian government's provisional revenue from the sale of BWA services Friday reached Rs.24,439.92 crore ($5.43 billion) and the pan-India licence price was Rs.9,522.35 crore ($2.11 billion).

India Tuesday concluded 77 rounds of the auction of airwaves for BWA services. This is a simultaneous online auction for two slots in each of the country's 22 service areas.

The auction, which began last week, saw the pan-India BWA licence price going up around 444.13 percent from the Rs.1,750 crore base price fixed by the government.