DELHI, India--(BUSINESS WIRE)--WiMAX Forum Conference – Beceem Communications, a leading provider of 4G semiconductor solutions, announced a technological breakthrough that enables its BCSi500 chip to support seamless, multi-mode operation of WiMAX and LTE, including live handoffs between the two technologies. The BCSi500 has the ability to automatically detect the network type and switch between WiMAX and LTE through a unique multi-mode “autosense” feature. In addition the BCSi500 is also the world’s first and currently only chip designed to reach up to 200Mbps peak throughput in a 20MHZ LTE network.

“Taken together we believe the BCSi500 will allow BWA spectrum winners such as Reliance, Aircel, Airtel and Tikona to immediately deploy WiMAX networks and then upgrade them to LTE quickly and cost-effectively based on their business plans and market conditions,” said Lars Johnsson, Vice President marketing and Business Development for Beceem. “This flexibility gives operators more choices in terms of how best to utilize their spectrum assets. A significant additional benefit of the WiMAX-to-LTE upgrade strategy is that by deploying WiMAX today, operators are positioned to negotiate better terms and timelines for their LTE deployment.”

The advantages of the BCSi500-enabled WiMAX-to-LTE deployment strategy are:

Deploy WiMAX today to begin driving revenue and market share:

• This addresses the immediate market opportunity of providing wireless broadband service to India’s numerous underserved markets in India.
• Operators can leverage the wide selection of low-cost WiMAX equipment, which is key for targeting price-sensitive consumers and businesses.
• WiMAX lets operators avoid LTE’s two major drawbacks: As a brand-new technology, LTE will have a limited selection of commercial user devices through 2012, and it may take several more years to ride down the cost curve. In both cases, WiMAX has a multi-year head start, we believe making it the best choice for immediate use of BWA spectrum.

A clear, graceful migration path to LTE:

• Operators can use WiMAX revenue to begin funding their LTE upgrades.
• Upgrading to LTE gives India’s operators access to that technology’s global ecosystem that can drive a larger device variety, higher volumes and enable global roaming, once LTE technology has matured in 3-5 years.
• Significantly reduced risk because by providing a bridge between WiMAX and LTE, the BCS500 gives operators the flexibility to upgrade to LTE faster and more cost-effectively.

“The dual-mode WiMAX/LTE capability of Beceem’s BCS500 has the potential to be a gamechanger in the BWA sweepstakes in India,” said Caroline Gabriel, Research Director, Rethink Technology Research Associates, a thought leader in quadruple play and emerging wireless technologies. “The WiMAX-to-LTE upgrade strategy makes the immediate deployment of a WiMAX network the smart choice for India.”

Beceem currently expects to make BCSi500 samples available to customers as early as Q1/2011.

About Beceem Communications

Beceem is a leading provider of 4G semiconductors and offers a number of single-chip solutions for mobile devices and CPE markets. Beceem’s products exclusively power the Clear and Now 4G networks in the United States and are validated against the base stations from all major infrastructure OEMs. http://www.beceem.com

Contacts

Ashley Affeldt/Valerie Christopherson

Global Results Communications (GRC)

+1 (949) 608-0276

beceem@globalresultspr.com4.