3G Services to start in Nov in India

India will have private sector 3G mobile services starting in November, but it is doubted that the service will be initially targeted at high-end subscribers.

“Operators will be initially targeting about 5 percent to 7 percent of existing mobile subscribers. Most of the 3G rollouts will focus initially on denser urban markets, and move out to semi-urban and rural markets”, said Kamlesh Bhatia, a principal research analyst at Gartner.

“Most customers will be looking primarily for data access, and in this regard 3G operators may soon face competition from broadband wireless access services that will get rolled out in the country”, Bhatia added.

Operators are looking at 3G services to boost revenue even as average revenue per user on voice calls on their current 2G services are falling because of fierce tariff competition.

Tata Teleservices is expected to roll out 3G services around Nov. 5 during the Diwali festival in India. It had won 3G spectrum for nine service areas in an auction in May. It will offer new 3G service under its GSM brand- Tata DoCoMo. It is recently awarded equipment and service contracts to Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei Technologies.

India's largest mobile operators, Bharti Airtelis looking launch its 3G services before the end of 2010 in the 13 service areas in which it has won spectrum from the government in an auction in May. Bharti Airtel, which offers 2G services in 22 service areas, said it will tie-up with other 3G operators to be able to offer 3G services to customers in all service areas. Bharti Airtel has given the contracts for 3G in the country to Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia Siemens.

Vodafone Essar, the Indian joint venture of Vodafone Group, plans to roll out 3G services by the first quarter of next year.

Government companies, BSNL and MTNL, were allotted 3G spectrum by the government ahead of the auction for private operators. Their services launched last year were not a success.

Other winning bidders in the 3G auction have still to announce detailed plans.

Private operators paid 509.6 billion rupees (US$11 billion) for spectrum in the auction for 3G services. The highest bid for a service area was in Delhi where a license cost 33 billion rupees.

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