3G to be auctioned among global private players: Raja

The Union Minister for Telecommunication and Information Technology Andimuthu Raja today said that the government will invite global private telecom players to bid for 3G spectrum through the auction process -- the date for which has not been finalised yet.

The minister addressing the media in Chennai at his maiden press conference since he took over as the telecom minister nine months ago, said that the auction process will be designed and conducted by UK based Rothschild group.

According to Raja, the limited number of players in India has forced the government’s hand to look for more bidders across the world for the 3G spectrum. The allocation of spectrum for state owned BSNL and MTNL have already been completed and are expected to roll out their 3G services by December this year.

3G is the third generation mobile telephony standards and technology that succeeds the current 2.5G standard. It is based on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) family of standards under the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000). IMT-2000 is the global standard for third generation wireless communications, defined by a set of interdependent ITU Recommendations.

India’s move to embrace 3G comes at a time when its popularity in advanced markets has been lacklustre, which also raises the question on the timing of the proposed auction.

However industry experts said that 3G had a good chance of succeeding in India, if the service provider do not repeat the mistakes of their western counterparts in terms of pricing and content of the services.

3G networks enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services including wide-area wireless voice telephony, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Additional features also include HSPA data transmission capabilities able to deliver speeds up to 14.4Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8Mbit/s on the uplink.

Currently in the country 2G networks are built and used which are mainly for voice data and slow transmission. Due to rapid changes in user expectation, they do not meet today's wireless needs.

Raja said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh  will launch the 3G service in New Delhi by early December. In Tamil Nadu, chief minister M Karunanidhi will launch it on January 14, on the occasion of Pongal (harvest festival).