Alcatel-Lucent has decided to shift the focus of its R&D unit in Chennai, India from WiMAX to LTE, according to Mr Vivek Mohan, President of Alcatel-Lucent's global services business and Managing Director of Alcatel-Lucent India.

“We are betting big on LTE technology and we are already doing related work at our R&D centre in Chennai. We are training our researchers at the centre. There is not much difference between WiMax and LTE when it comes to developing products and solutions, so the shift is not taking too much of an effort” said Mr Mohan, while Speaking to Business Line.

The Chennai R&D centre is a joint venture Of Alcatel-Lucent & Government owned C-DoT. It was set up in 2005 to develop solutions for WiMax.

In another development, Alcatel-Lucent looks to shift its global services headquarters to India. Alcatel-Lucent will invest $500 million over the next three years in India if the global services unit is moved here.

Final decision will be taken in the next few weeks. “This is a huge decision and it involves significant investments and bringing more people. India is clearly a key market for us and we are looking to drive our global services strategy from here. If you look to the competition you have to bring to the world market, it's skills first, cost second and flexibility third. On all three counts, I think India has a great story to tell,” said Alcatel-Lucent CEO Mr Ben Verwaayen.

India has witnessed substantial growth in the mobile subscriber base over the last decade. This provides a ready platform for offering various data services which is currently at a very nascent stage. Diverse data services and rich contents have significantly boosted data traffic in developed and other emerging markets.