The WiMAX Forum has raised strong questions over Qualcomm’s announcement today to bid for BWA (broadband wireless access) spectrum in the upcoming auctions in India.  According to the industry association which oversees all areas concerning WiMAX services across the globe, the move by Qualcomm is actually an attempt to hoard spectrum.

“BWA spectrum for 2.3 GHz TDD  is globally harmonized for WiMAX. TD LTE is never ever promoted by QCOM till today anywhere in the world. QCOM has been promoting FDD LTE in 700 MHz and 2.6 Ghz band. That is a public news,” says WiMAX Forum India Chairman, Mr. CS Rao while speaking to TelecomTiger.

According to Mr. Rao, TD-LTE (which is considered to be Chinese-based standard) chipsets are yet to be launched by any semiconductor player including Qualcomm. Even in markets where LTE is gaining traction, FDD LTE is the standard widely adopted, points out Mr. Rao.

“WiMAX is the father of LTE as it had all 4G features such as IP,MIMO and OFDMA and TDD access,” says Mr. Rao.

The WiMAX Forum in fact questions Qualcomm’s move and says even if one believes that Qualcomm’s intentions behind the intended move to participate in BWA spectrum auctions in India are justified, then in that case it may be viewed as the company accepting that it has lost out in the battle for supremacy for mobile internet access through their globally promoted “3G for BB “and “LTE Rel 8 for Wireless BB” promotions.

“It is rather strange for QCOM to promote TD LTE for intro only in India when all over the globe QCOM  has been promoting LTE Rel.8 (FDD),” adds Mr. Rao. “Indian Operators are mature enough to take wise decisions and they are rich enough with cash to bid and win the spectrum for BWA on WiMAX.”

He goes on to say, rather categorically, “I am afraid that this move by QCOM ,if they emerge as winners in the bid  ,may result in the hoarding of precious spectrum .Thus  India would lose an opportunity serve  20 million subscribers on a slot of 20MHz by 2012.India cannot afford losing such precious resource of Spectrum for immature ,untested and unproven technologies. India can ill afford that at this stage of economic growth.”