Wimax Vs LTE? Is it the end of the road for Wimax in India?

The only winner of spectrum pan-india, Reliance Industries backed Infotel, has announced that it is betting on LTE. US based Qualcomm, also won spectrum in India will also roll-out an LTE network.

Airtel, Aircel and RelianceComm are likely to use LTE as well, because it offers a sinlge evolution path for both CDMA and GSM. Operators like TATA Comm who have an existing Wimax network did not win any spectrum in the auction that just ended.

LTE is synonymous with 4G and can handle 10 Mbps data speed. Recently, Yota which owns the world’s larget Wimax network, announcing in May 2010, that they are moving to LTE, AND, US headquartered Clearwire announcing that they are considering a move to LTE as well, the long-term choice seems clear.

India will prove to be a key market for LTE as a technology, because what happenes in India could affect the overall growth of LTE as a technology. With Mukesh Ambani backing the technology, scale for this technology won’t be far behind and with scale in India, device costs will be driven down and this will benefot the LTE eco-system hugely across the globe.