San Diego-based Qualcomm (NASDAQ:[[ticker:QCOM]]) says it submitted the winning bid in an auction for India’s broadband wireless access (BWA)—spectrum in the 2.3 gigahertz (GHz) band. In a statement today, the wireless technologies giant said it is the provisional winner of the 20 megahertz (MHz) slot in the telecom circles of four cities—Mumbai, Delhi, Haryan, and Kerala—after bidding slightly more than $1 billion.
Qualcomm, which was among 12 bidders for broadband spectrum in India, says it anticipates the Indian Government will quickly approve the auction results. To comply with India’s regulations for direct foreign investments, Qualcomm says it will soon name the Indian companies it is partnering with in its plans to build wireless broadband networks in the four cities.
Qualcomm and its partners plan to demonstrate Qualcomm’s LTE technology with the goal of creating a network that will support 3G networks and devices to support India’s broadband goals. Sometime after building these networks, Qualcomm says it plans to “exit the venture,” which presumably means the company plans to sell its stake.
In Qualcomm’s statement, CEO Paul Jacobs says, “Qualcomm innovations helped trigger the wireless revolution in India by making mobile communications affordable and accessible.”
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
View all posts by Bruce V. Bigelow