Interview - Ericsson CTO Hakan Eriksson:

In India, operators have sunk a lot of money on 3G, which was delayed so much. Considering that, is it too early to talk of LTE for India?

I don�t think so. It�s easy to see things as 2G, 3G, and now 4G as they are sequential things but I don�t think that�s the way the world works. You deploy certain technologies in certain spectrum. So there is 2.6 gigahertz for LTE spectrum, 2.3 gigahertz for BWA (broadband wireless) � which, for a while in India was called the WiMax spectrum; now it�s back to the BWA spectrum, though. So none of these is 3G spectrum, they are not good for HSPA either. Nobody is making equipment in that spectrum. 2.1 gigahertz is where people make HSPA equipment and nobody really makes LTE equipment in that band. And then 900 megahertz is where people make GSM equipment. So the sequentiality is based on which order the regulators give out licences for these spectrums and of course when the standards are set out. But it doesn�t mean you operate in that way; you actually operate in parallel � to use an analogy, just like a grandfather, father and son lead parallel lives. There is so much of congestion in voice in India that the 3G spectrum will just be consumed by voice. So you will need LTE for data. India is one of the few countries where there is very, very little strategy on spectrum.