The Hindu Business Line : RCom, Qualcomm bury differences, in new tie-up

New Delhi, July 7 Reliance Communications and Qualcomm have buried their differences over royalty payments and on Saturday announced a partnership to make available cheaper data services in India using CDMA technology. The two companies will collaborate to launch cheaper and feature-rich handsets, wireless Internet data cards and a host of data applications.

Reliance also announced plans to expand its CDMA network, covering more than 20,000 towns in India. Earlier, Reliance had sought to shift to the rival GSM technology on the grounds that Qualcomm was charging high royalty on CDMA handsets, which was making it difficult to compete with cheaper GSM handsets. Qualcomm had, however, refused to lower the royalty, saying it would enable cheaper handsets through other cost-cutting measures.

Saturday’s announcement signals the end of that dispute and also indicates Reliance’s strategy to stay with CDMA technology.

Speaking to Business Line, Dr Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm Inc, said, “We are delighted to partner with Reliance and we are hoping for greater growth in the CDMA segment. The concerns relating to handset price have been addresse d and today we have CDMA handsets that are among the lowest priced in the market.”

“Having jointly achieved several milestones in driving down the costs of voice telephony in India, our latest goal is to bring consumers an exciting new range of data offerings in mobile broadband, including multimedia and entertainment,” added Dr Jacobs.

Reliance has launched Reliance Netconnect, which offers uninterrupted, anytime, anywhere wireless Internet connectivity in more than 8,000 towns, three lakh villages and along major highways and railway routes in India.

“We are committed to the continued explosive growth of telecommunication services in India and with Qualcomm our leadership in the domestic market will be strengthened even further,” said Mr Anil Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Communications Ltd.

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