Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) might choose the long-term evolution (LTE) technology for its broadband wireless access (BWA) services instead of rival standard WiMAX.

The decision of reliance could have a deep impact on other undecided operators as it is the only firm to have fun spectrum in all the 22 circles in the country. RIL’s choosing the LTE could be a huge setback form WiMAX technology backed by chipmaker Intel, as most experts through most Indian operators will choose the technology for operations.

The government recently auctioned WiMax spectrum for whooping 8.56 billion USD and telecom service providers are getting ready to launch services to take the time advantage as the market is expected to response well to the technology.

Most operators are struggling to choose immediate head start offered by WiMAX or the global scale LTE will be able to offer in a year’s time. The emergence of TD-LTE has to some extent lured more firms. The operators believe that choosing the LTE will delay their operations.

LTE is backed by Qualcomm and the reason for Reliance to back the technology could be its partnership with the firm. RIL under a deal could also use the CDMA network of younger brother Anil’s Reliance Communications
(Rcomm) for the LTE based services.

Qualcomm has also won spectrum in four circles in the country. However, the services based on the technology will take some time to roll out as LTE will only be ready by fully ready only by next year.

Meanwhile, WiMAXis available from the last five years and the new “WiMAX 2” is set to launch by the end of this year. Only the state run BSNL and MTNL have started rolling out WiMAX for their BWA services.

India currently has only 9 million broadband subscribers and this presents a huge opportunity for the operators in the country.