Monday, 9 July 2007

Qualcomm, Reliance Make Up, To Expand Services In India

Qualcomm, the US based owner of CDMA technology and Reliance Communications have agreed to iron out their differences paving way for the expansion of the technology in India.

With this announcement, RCom, India’s second largest private telecom company and a dominant force in the CDMA-based mobile telephony in the country will expand its CDMA 2000 network to 20,000 more towns. Reliance already has laid the world’s most extensive underground fibre optic network and ground equipment at a far lower cost than any other operator.

Qualcomm chief executive Paul E Jacobs had met RCom chairman Anil Ambani and solved all issues that had prompted Ambani to launch a pan India GSM service. The issues related to the amount of royalty to be paid.

Jacobs will also meet Ratan Tata, whose Tata Teleservices is another sizeable CDMA operator.

It had been said that Qualcomm was charging higher royalty in India than in other countries. However, neither party confirmed it and it is Qualcomm’s policy not to reveal the royalty structure.

RCom’s decision to push CDMA comes at a time when the government has been squatting over its request for additional spectrum to expand its GSM network to cover the entire country.