Intel Corp. dove further into the cellular business on Thursday, becoming one of the winners in Sweden's auction of licenses for nationwide wireless broadband.Intel paid $26 million for a 15-year license it intends to use for WiMax, a technology it has developed and promoted in competition with more traditional cellular technologies developed by the telecom industry. Intel stands to gain from sales of WiMax-enabled computer chips for a wide range of consumer products. Intel business developer Carl-Daniel Norenberg told Swedish magazine Ny Teknik that the company is looking for partners to build and operate the network, but plans to keep the license and rent it out rather than selling it.

It's not the first time Intel has put its money into WiMax networks. On Wednesday, it was announced that Intel will contribute $1 billion to a $14.5 billion venture that will combine Sprint Nextel Corp.'s WiMax division with Clearwire Corp. The joint venture plans a U.S.-wide network. Intel is also a minority investor in a group that won a WiMax license in Japan in December.



Intel was one of five winners in the Swedish auction. It paid the least for its license, even though it won the largest amount of spectrum. The Swedish Post and Telecom Agency had specified that this particular license be used with Time-Division Duplexing, a way of utilizing radio waves that WiMax is suitable for.

The other licenses were for Frequency-Division Duplexing, a more conventional transmission method. The winners of those licenses were Swedish operators TeliaSonera AB, Tele2 AB and HI3G Access AB, as well as Norway's Telenor ASA. The total value of the auction was $348 million.

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