India to lead mobile internet boom: Qualcomm

Qualcomm is a pioneer in wireless broadband and has taken wireless broadband spectrum in India almost a year back.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18's Siddharth Zarabi, Dr Paul Jacobs, chairman and chief executive officer of Qualcomm said, the company's spectrum plans are on track. "We do not have an announcement yet about what we are going to do with the spectrum, but the plan is on track."

He further said, India will lead mobile internet boom.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview. Also watch the accompanying videos.

Q: You made a big entry into India in terms of the broadband wireless access spectrum that you acquired. There was an announcement by your company that you would go ahead and sell this, rope in a partner, the device, the chips will soon be available, and we will have a demo network very soon. Where are you on that?

A: If you look, we have done what we said in terms of getting trials out, demonstrating our ability between LTE and 3G. And that was very important piece because we believe in the multi mode aspect so that you get the coverage wherever you go with your devices.

Where are we with the spectrum? We are continuing to work with partners. We do not have an announcement yet about what we are going to do with the spectrum, but the plan is on track.

Q: Aren't there any delays? The sense that we had was that you would have announced your partners on the spectrum side long back. Is there a delay, is there a valuation issue?

A: No. It is not that issue. It is just a question of getting the details worked out. The pressure is not necessarily there just yet because we do not see the commercial network launch until the end of the year, and beginning of next year. So, we have a few more months. We will get this done. Discussions have been going on very well.

Q: When you say commercial networks will be launched by the end of the year, what kind of rollout are you expecting?

A: It will be like any new networks. We will try and get it rolled out across large number of towns. Similar to the way you have seen happen with 3G. It starts out small maybe in urban areas and then it will rolls out more. We are expecting probably over 1,000 towns for 3G this year. Last year, it was around 300. So, it is moving at its own pace. I think we will see the rollouts happen as they do with all networks.

Q: The technology evolution, one of the key concerns for millions of subscribers in India is the fact that India perhaps is not very sure about the kind of service offering that it can look forward to. There is a multiplicity of handsets that is available, but there is probably not very clear defined offering that a large mass of subscribers are very clear about. The price points aren't available. I am talking about the 3G space broadly. In terms of the evolution, what is it looking like to you?

A: I would say it is very good. Globally, it is growing quite quickly. There are 1.4 billion people using 3G services around the world right now. So, it's a very popular thing.

What's the killer wrap? A lot of things, but broadly it's the access to the internet. The internet has been extended to mobility. So, the fact is you carry that with you all the time, that you have location capability. So, there are all these applications about checking in or finding what surround you in the world.

We have invested in companies in India also that provide same kind of services here. So, I think you will find people having access to the internet over these devices. The key is getting the cost of service and more importantly the cost of the devices down. We have been investing very heavily to drive a lot of the integration to drive the cost of the smartphone down where it is much more available to your normal person.

Q: What is your sense about the lowest cost of the smartphone, atleast the entry level smartphone devices that are going to come in into India? We have been talking about various price points. Sometime back the conventional wisdom had it that the USD 200 thing was perhaps the optimal price point; we then went to USD 100 and sub USD 100. But the fact is that when you look at the overall bundle offering that may exist, it perhaps isn't still there. Have you applied your mind to what is really the correct price point for the Indian market?

A: I think we are all experimenting with that right now. The key is as we learnt on the feature phone side, you just got to drive the price down as much as possible. And that means higher and higher degrees of integration of functionality into the chipset. And then working to make sure that there is a lot of competition between lots of companies to drive those costs down.

As we see these come down towards the USD 100 price point and then below, we are just going to get more adoption. Already the case is that there are five times more mobile data devices than there are PCs. So, people do get the idea that there are going to use their mobile device to get on the internet. There is probably the case that India will see a leapfrogging where computing gets done on mobile devices as oppose to on a fixed device. And that's where the rest of the world is heading. India has the opportunity to really lead in that.