4G
in India? So What Happens To 3G Now?
By
Priyanka Jain
Master’s in E-commerce
IMS (DAVV)
Most people would turn up with
the saying ~PEHLE 3G TO AANE DO. Last week, there were words about the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI)
seeking views of the industry on 4G Mobile Services and now according to a report,
Tata Teleservices strongly supports the TRAI to phase out the process for
introducing 4G mobile technology in India. 3G is already an old technology
launched way back in 2001 and we are late by 9 years already. Also, 23
international operators will launch the 4G service globally this year. And if
4th generation technology that will provide voice, data and streamed multimedia to users on an “anytime, anywhere” basis, and at higher data rates than current generations allow. Objectives for 4G include wired and wireless technologies capable of providing 100Mbps and 1Gbps speeds both indoors and outdoors. Sweden and Norway had already launched IMT-Advanced (4G) mobile wireless broadband networks and operators in the United States, Korea and Japan were gearing up for these services. The TRAI said it would deliberate on issues such as pricing of spectrum and licensing in its consultation paper. India is the worlds second-largest and the fastest-growing mobile market in terms of subscribers, but most of its networks are of second generation. Now country's plan to auction spectrum for 3G and broadband wireless access (BWA) services has been delayed as defense forces, which have much of the spectrum, are yet to vacate it for civilian use. The auction was set to begin from Jan. 14, but Telecoms Minister Andimuthu Raja said on Jan. 12 some of the differences with the defense ministry were yet to be resolved and that a new date had not been agreed upon. Media reports have said the auction could be delayed until September when the spectrum is expected to be available There has been much fuss about the 3G launch in India and it still looks like the 3G launch is not going anywhere at least among the private players. In such a situation we cannot comment on what may happen if 4G spectrum bidding is announced too! We have earlier told you that 4G won’t hamper the 3G auction, but now it seems things may change to some extent. 4G provides 10 times faster internet speed than 3G and has support for live Hi-Def TV content. Now, if TRAI seriously plans on bringing 4G to the country, why would any Telecom Operator waste money and time on implementing the 10 year old 3G technology? BSNL already has 3G services up and running in various parts of India and the reaction of it’s 3G services have been mixed, i.e. both good and bad. Tata Tele’s interest in the 4G technology may have many implications. It is quite possible that Tata Tele is working hard to get infrastructure and machinery required for 4G and may be very well one of the first and earliest bidders for the 4G spectrum. The biggest obstacle here is availability of
4g phones to the common masses. Mobile vendors have recently displayed 4g
phones ~ HTC Evogreen 4g, and Samsung epic and few more to be launched in a
couple of months. These premiums range “so sweet devices “would roughly take
another 6 months to be launched in
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