Leading global chip maker, Intel, which has been a dedicated support of the mobile telephony standard called wireless inter-operability for microwave access or Wimax, technology for broadband Internet, has now said that it will through its weight behind rival Long Term Evolution or LTE technology when it is ready.

Tom Kilroy, Intel’s global sales and marketing head said, “Question is, (in the) long term is LTE much bigger? Possibly yes, quite possibly yes. Whenever LTE makes it to the market, Intel will support LTE.”

Wimax and LTE are rival mobile telephony standards offering choice for telecom service providers around the world. WiMAX is already being deployed in 500 networks in 147 countries and LTE is expected to take some time to roll out but have a wider presence.

Most service operators are choosing between the time advantage offered by WiMAX and the global scale offered by LTE for deploying fourth-generation high-speed mobile phone networks.

LTE supports include chip-maker, Qualcomm Inc and world''s biggest telecom equipment makers like Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent. Intel’s $1.6 billion Wimax vehicle in the US, Clearwire Corp has indicated that it might choose LTE as the technology standard.

"WiMax is here and it is available now and operators looking at faster return on investments will choose it. The goal is to provide mobile broadband services. When LTE becomes a standard, we will integrate in our platform," Intel South Asia Managing Director (Sales and Marketing) R Sivakumar.

In India, the government has recently auctioned wireless broadband spectrum and the only company which won spectrum in all the circles is now owned by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). Qualcomm it self won rights to spectrum in four circles in the country.

RIL’s decision on the technology could also influence the choices of other vendors in the country. India still has low level of internet penetration and this offers a great opportunity for telecom players and companies such as Intel