Jul 18, 2015

Israel’s Altair Semiconductor bets big on Reliance Jio’s 4G rollout; hopes to maximise global revenue

By Danish Kahn

NEW DELHI: Israel-based chipmaker Altair Semiconductor sees significant growth coming on the back of planned commercial rollouts by Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio Infocomm, the only pan-India 4G player, which has been using Altair’s LTE chipset-based broadband devices for trials in the country.

“We have been betting big on India as it could potentially generate significant portion of our global revenue next year, driven by commercial rollouts by Reliance Jio. Nowhere in the world such big opportunities are available that could generate the potential of scale in magnitude that Jio is promising to generate. The investments are finally going to pay off,” Eran Eshed, co-founder and vice-president, marketing, at Altair, told ET.

The chipmaker has been providing LTE-based chipsets to Reliance Jio for a fixed broadband access device that is installed in homes to get fixed internet access, and portable wi-fi routers, both developed by the company’s original device maker partners in China and Taiwan.

A spokesperson for Reliance Jio declined to comment.

Altair established its India office in mid-2011, and currently employs several engineers and sales people, mainly involved in Reliance Jio’s 4G LTE field trials. “They (Reliance Jio) have been very diligent and thorough in the network planning, testing, interoperability testing and field trials. It has been happening for last few years. Besides the device side, we have also been following Jio’s network and services,” Eshed said.

Reliance Jio, one of the largest green-field companies in the world, is expected to launch highspeed broadband services in the country in December, more than five years after re-entering the telecom sector. Over the next few months, Jio will start an extensive beta launch, which will be upgraded to commercial operations. Altair is also in touch with Bharti Airtel, Aircel and Tikona, the other BWA licence holders in India.

“We have deployment at Airtel and are involved in trials at Aircel and even Tikona, but Reliance Jio has been our major focus area. We are well positioned to corner leading share in India,” Eshed said.

The co-founder claimed that Altair has shipped more LTE chipset-based units to India than Qulacomm, Marvell and Sequans Communications put together. These vendors are Altair’s main competitors in the Indian market. Sequans Communications, however, already bagged LTE chipset deals from India’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel and Tikona Digital Systems.

Sequans’ LTE chipset technology is powering the single-mode LTE CPEs being deployed by Airtel and Tikona for their subscribers. Altair has also developed a technology that will allow small devices like security alarms and electricity meters to connect to 4G mobile networks more efficiently. Eshed said these chipsets are being deployed in markets like Japan in Europe by telcos and internet service providers.