3G WILL GET GOING IN JANUARY

Get set for January. There is finally a date on when the country will start getting third

generating (3G) telephony services that will drive cool features such as mobile TV. Successful bidders were given wireless spectrum on Wednesday after years of wrangling

and a keenly fought auction.



PRIVATE FIRMS AWARDED SPECTRUM

Vodafone,

Reliance Communications

Tata Teleservices

Bharti Airtel

Ideal Cellular

Aircel Cellular

S Tel

5MHz

or Megahert - the quantum of spectrum awarded to each winning bedder Rs 3,000

Estimated minimum price of a 3G handset

PUBLIC SECTOR FIRMS ALREADY IN THE FRAY

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Lt

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.

WHAT IT ENABLES

Mobile TV: TV

channels on mobile phones

Video-on-demand: Download streaming videos or file

Video Conferencing: for office or homes

Tele-medicine: Medical consulting from remote locations

Location-based service: Live, localized information on traffic and events

WHAT 3G OFFERS

3G usually offers highspeed data downloads of at least 2 Mbps (megabit per second) - eight

times as fast as the best GSM networks in 2G telephony.

Typically you can downoad a song in a matter of seconds.

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

MTNL now charges half a paisa per second for a video call made to another MTNL

subscriber. It would be 1 paisa per second when made to other networks once they start.

For data downloads, the charges are 1 paisa/sec. Private players are unlikely to charge

more as the field is competitive.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR TELECOM FIRMS

The Average Revenue Per User could go up. MTNL says it has seen a rise of 15 to 20 per

cent in its ARPU of Rs. 140 after 3G services were launched.