BANGALORE, INDIA: Qualcomm brought in a ripple when it announced that it will be a part of India's BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) spectrum bid for Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex or TD-LTE.

Kanwalinder Singh, president, Qualcomm India and South Asia and senior vice president Qualcomm Inc., talks to CIOL about why the company made such a move and what does it think about WiMAX.

CIOL: Qualcomm has been promoting FDD-LTE in the rest of its markets. So what made it go for TDD-LTE in India?

Kanwalinder Singh: Qualcomm supports LTE standard, which defines both FDD and TDD modes. In fact, both the variants levearage the same global ecosystem. It is factually incorrect to say that Qualcomm has been promoting only FDD-LTE in other markets.

Also Read: NSN Alcatel and now Cisco: Is WiMAX losing grounds?

Qualcomm’s MDM9x00 chipset family supports both TDD and FDD modes of LTE, and is interoperable with 3G HSPA and EV-DO.

Qualcomm has already triggered mobile broadband in India with CDMA2000 EV-DO, and will accelerate it further with 3G and LTE. In India’s BWA band (2.3 GHz TDD), LTE is the technology best suited to address the growing demand for high bandwidth mobile broadband services.

Unlike WiMAX, LTE is compatible with both 3G HSPA and EV-DO, and will thus offer a seamless mobile broadband experience to consumers within the country and while roaming globally with multimode devices.