Men walk past an advertisement for 3G telecom services in New Delhi on April 9, 2010April 13, 2010
By Harmeet Shah Singh
New Delhi, India (CNN) -- In the good old days, Indians would wait for years for a telephone line to be installed in their homes and workplaces.
Until the early 1990s, a phone was seen as a luxury.
But today, India's vast underclass is almost as well connected as the rich in what is hailed as a telecom revolution that has delivered mobile telephony to nearly 600 million people in just a little over a decade.
The nation is now preparing for another giant leap into the digital world as it auctions off its airwaves for third-generation (3G) services to enable super-fast multimedia streaming on wireless networks.
Industry leaders Vodafone Essar, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Telecom and six other companies began bidding last week for slots in 22 zones -- called circles -- of India's telecom market.
The auction, with a reserve price of $787 million, is being held online on a secure Web site, according to officials.
The process is expected to run for days or weeks. The government has not set a closing date for the auction.
The government wants to award the 3G frequency space later this year, said Satyendra Prakash, a spokesman for the communications ministry.
Also, there will be a follow-up auction of broadband wireless access that has attracted 11 bidders, telecommunications officials say.
Analysts forecast that 3G systems will boost India's internet penetration with technology allowing quick access, data transfer and entertainment on mobile handsets.
India's online market has not kept pace with the country's booming mobile-phone business despite the country's image as an IT powerhouse.
Raj Pal, an adviser at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, says the nation had barely 15.24 million internet users in December last year. Among them were 7.82 million broadband subscribers, he added.
Independent surveys suggest about 71 million Indians claimed to have logged on in 2009, still a tiny fraction of the country's population of 1.2 billion.
Analysts now foresee another revolution ahead as the current second-generation (2G) mobile services are replaced by a successor.
"3G is going to do to the Internet in India what 2G did to mobile telephony," said Kunal Bajaj, India director of British-based consultancy firm Analysys Mason.
More than 130 countries already are using the third-generation platform, he said.
India has announced a program aimed at linking up all its 250,000 village councils by 2012 in a bid to plug massive broadband divides between rural and urban communities as the country emerges as one of the world's few growth markets.
Indians often complain of poor connectivity and abrupt termination of mobile calls. Bajaj explains that is because of signal congestion on cell-phone towers.
Experts believe 3G technology, for now, will be used to improve existing services on strained networks.
"The initial focus is expected to be on improving quality of calls," says Bajaj. "It will shift to multimedia application over a period of time," he adds.
Until the early 1990s, a phone was seen as a luxury.
But today, India's vast underclass is almost as well connected as the rich in what is hailed as a telecom revolution that has delivered mobile telephony to nearly 600 million people in just a little over a decade.
The nation is now preparing for another giant leap into the digital world as it auctions off its airwaves for third-generation (3G) services to enable super-fast multimedia streaming on wireless networks.
Industry leaders Vodafone Essar, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Telecom and six other companies began bidding last week for slots in 22 zones -- called circles -- of India's telecom market.
The auction, with a reserve price of $787 million, is being held online on a secure Web site, according to officials.
The process is expected to run for days or weeks. The government has not set a closing date for the auction.
The government wants to award the 3G frequency space later this year, said Satyendra Prakash, a spokesman for the communications ministry.
Also, there will be a follow-up auction of broadband wireless access that has attracted 11 bidders, telecommunications officials say.
Analysts forecast that 3G systems will boost India's internet penetration with technology allowing quick access, data transfer and entertainment on mobile handsets.
India's online market has not kept pace with the country's booming mobile-phone business despite the country's image as an IT powerhouse.
Raj Pal, an adviser at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, says the nation had barely 15.24 million internet users in December last year. Among them were 7.82 million broadband subscribers, he added.
Independent surveys suggest about 71 million Indians claimed to have logged on in 2009, still a tiny fraction of the country's population of 1.2 billion.
Analysts now foresee another revolution ahead as the current second-generation (2G) mobile services are replaced by a successor.
"3G is going to do to the Internet in India what 2G did to mobile telephony," said Kunal Bajaj, India director of British-based consultancy firm Analysys Mason.
More than 130 countries already are using the third-generation platform, he said.
India has announced a program aimed at linking up all its 250,000 village councils by 2012 in a bid to plug massive broadband divides between rural and urban communities as the country emerges as one of the world's few growth markets.
Indians often complain of poor connectivity and abrupt termination of mobile calls. Bajaj explains that is because of signal congestion on cell-phone towers.
Experts believe 3G technology, for now, will be used to improve existing services on strained networks.
"The initial focus is expected to be on improving quality of calls," says Bajaj. "It will shift to multimedia application over a period of time," he adds.
4 comments:
i think cambodia is heading toward an internet and cell phone phenomenon society. thanks to it preoccupation with civil unrest, now the country of cambodia all high tech, especially with cell phones and the electronic age like computers, internet, etc... god bless cambodia. and why not; it saves a lot of time with internet and computer high tech.
A lot of Cambodian people said Mobitel Company took their money from their account eventhough they did not using their services.
They do not where and know to complain, they just stopped using it.
Althought, the Cambodia Mister of Telecommunication,So Khun, took side with Mobiltel for not allowing any mobile phone company to charge less than 5 cents for innet call and not less 7 cents for cross network call.
Does the Cambodia help the poor people, or help Mobitel ?
Is Cambodian having a free market policie ?
I have yet to see consumer protection in Cambodia and why is that? Not long ago a Cambodian woman die from using skin whitening cream which result in her death and only then AH HUN SEN officials jump to do something!
Oh well! It is always too late for AH HUN SEN officials to do anything! As for the Mobiltel AH HUN SEN officials better take a very close look at the business practice of Mobiltel! It is the art of the telecom business to steal a few cents from the consumers to make million of dollars!
One day,I remembered well that I had $2.00 exactly in my Mobitel account.
The next day,I checked it again, I had only $1.98 in my balance.I lost 2 cents for no reason overnight.
Mobitel claimed it has 20000000 cell phone users.
In my case Mobitel make $40,000.00 illegally overnight by using their stealing state of art technology.
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