Intel Looking To Invest in Indian WiMax operators

Sitting on a cash pile of $15 billion, chip maker Intel is looking to invest in companies which will enable uptake of WiMAX-based broadband services in India. This could include picking up stake in Indian telecom operators who win the WiMAX spectrum and also invest in smaller companies that have equipment or software solutions to build the ecosystem.

Mr Sriram Viswanathan, Vice-President, Intel Capital and General Manager, WiMAX Program Office had this to say when questioned on his India plans - “We are always looking for opportunities. We have invested a significant amount in many countries including US, Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan. We have done roughly a dozen plus operators. Our objective is to cover a billion people over the next few years with WiMAX technology and India with its huge population offers good opportunity,”

The only way Intel can invest into wimax is invest in Telecom Co’s that get Wimax spectrum alotted to them via the auction which is expected to be held in January 2009. Besides for state-owned telecom majors BSNL and MTNL, private players including Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices are expected to deploy WiMAX-based wireless broadband services in India by next year.

“India will have four WiMAX licences. We want the market to grow for which we will have to do some heavy lifting. Though we cannot have five different relationships in the same geography, it doesn’t mean that we need to have only one. In the US, we had commercial relationships with both Clearwire and Sprint," he said.

The major issue facing the growth of technologies like wimax and 3G is investments especially in the current slowdown scene where cash is hard to come by and lesser and lesser companies would take risk with new technologies. Intel has made investments the world over in application and equipment companies like Telsima, Beeceem and also NIIT, Sasken and Rediff.

But given the auction is just around the corner more such investments would need to be made for the growth and adoption of new technologies.