Bharti, RCom ready with 3G infra, awaiting govt nod

Leading telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications (RCom) today said they are ready with their 3G infrastructure and are waiting for the government to release spectrum.

The government is likely to release spectrum on September 1 this year after it gets vacated by the defence forces. The total revenue of the government from sale of spectrum for both 3G and BWA stood at over Rs 1.06 lakh crore.

"Our network is already ready for providing 3G services. Our content and application are also getting ready for the same and the IT too has geared up. The only thing that needs to be added is the radio network," Bharti Airtel Chief Executive for India and South Asia Sanjay Kapoor told reporters here.

"I am hopeful that before the end of this calendar year, we should see some light on 3G and real user experience happening," he said.

Expressing similar views on 3G infrastructure set-up, RCom President Mahesh Prasad in another event told reporters,"If the spectrum is allocated by September. We will roll-out our services by the end of the year or by early next year." Asking on whether they have finalised vendors and are they ready for the services roll-out he replied," Yes indeed our vendors partners (Huwarei and ZTE as of now) have also got approval and we are at a process of finalising our network deployment.

On the ongoing controversy over BlackBerry services' monitoring, both (Airtel and RCom) said they would comply with the government norms as and when they are announced.

They, however, declined to comment on whether BlackBerry services can be intercepted or monitored at their end.

Nine operators including government owned BSNL and MTNL are offering BlackBerry services.

Meanwhile, security agencies have raised concerns over non-availability of interception technology, to be provided by BlackBerry's maker Research in Motion (RIM), which may lead to ban of enterprise email after August 31.