Why does a firm that controls 3G tech globally want mobile phone spectrum in India? Qualcomm's Kanwalinder Singh answers
Kanwalinder Singh
Age: 48 years
Designation: President, Qualcomm — India and South Asia and senior vice president Qualcomm Inc.
Education: Completed a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Bucknell University, Pennsylvania, USA
Career: Chief Technical Officer with Lucent Technologies India. Held technical and managerial positions in Bell Laboratories
Interests: Golf, hiking and bicycling
Q. Why is Qualcomm bidding for mobile broadband spectrum?
Qualcomm has a history of making investments to accelerate technologies pioneered by it. Many years back we got into the business of manufacturing and handsets to similarly accelerate the adoption of CDMA. Once the rest of the ecosystem came up around that, we exited by selling that business to Ericsson and Kyocera. In 2003 we acquired 700 Mhz spectrum in the US to accelerate adoption of MediaFLO, a mobile TV technology pioneered by us. Today AT&T and Verizon run those networks. And we’ve publicly stated that our subsidiary FLO TV will be spun out at a separate time. In 2007 we acquired spectrum in the UK also, to accelerate the spread of mobile TV.
But our core mission and vision remain being a technology provider to the wireless ecosystem.
Q. By bidding for and holding spectrum, will you not end up competing with your mobile operator customers?
You have to see our decision in the context of 3G. This is about the future of 3G. The fundamental three questions we get when we speak to operators are: Is my 3G investment protected? Which of the multiple options in technology in the future do I choose? And who is going to take charge for developing the ecosystem?
(This story appears in the 16 April, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)