First of course, as I discussed in many of my blogs that the main issue with the operators is ROIs. The investment is huge and there is no guarantee of success. So in short there is a risk in investment. And wht will happen if India doesn't welcome 3G openly? The  most certain thing about 3G is that it will deliver its promise, I mean whatever the specifications say we will get almost those things. Like better speech quality, better mobility and better coverage. How I am so sure of it?

Ok, first of all recently 3G has been implemented in Indonesia. Those of whom who are in doubt with the performance clearly look at the post performance of deployment of 3G network in Indonesia. In fact after reading the lines that HSDPA technology is delivering promise of 2Mbps speed, I was very delighted. May be you willnot 2Mbps in India, but the case study of deployment of 3G in Indonesia is certainly going to be useful coz it is the closest neighboring country in Asia who is about to see the Broadband boom after deployment of 3G.

The other aspect which looks promising is about a recent report by Gartner which says that WiMAX investment should be put on hold unless there are dual technology User Equipments(UE) available in market. Though I am writing it in short, it is clear that unless we have a 3G/WiMAX capable phone to roam around,  we willnot be able to predict the viability of WiMAX in current secnario.

Not only this report, but recent interview of Mr.A Raja who confidently said that 3G e-auction process will start from Oct-08 boosted the confidence of operators who are till date are uncertain about choosing the path of technology.But I was wondering about the his statement that which says We are custodian of Spectrum. Yes I agree the spectrum management is an important issue but it is wht we expect from GOI or specifically from DoT, isn't  it?

Are we going to deploy 3G only for Voice? May be yes. The recent report in TOI says that 3G in India will be mainly for Voice traffic. To be on safer side ..right? May be yes...as BB penetration is India is not that good, launching 3G for V&D will be a great risk in terms of investment, as still GPRS is not able to find the roadways ahead forget about HSDPA. Some may cite poor download speed of GPRS responsible of this, but still with other options available like DSL,ADSL, still we are not enthu about BB at home.So it may be wise decision to deploy 3G for voice and make sure intersystem i.e from 3G to 2G roaming is possible at ease without any issue.

Transparency in spectrum auction is wht expected from DoT, but there are some issues raised about the criteria of giving 3G CDMA spectrum to an operator who is having highest number of subscribers. Clearly 3G CDMA license will be given to Reliance, if this is the case. Then we shouldn't forget the fact that fair play issnot an objective of GOI at anytime, otherwise BSNL/MTNL wudn't have got the 3G spectrum much before auction. All policies and target are good on paper, real life has different story.

I am going to write a separate blog about Telecom Policy in India, but need some more time to come up with it.

Other aspect I would like to touch in this blog is VoIP. Somewhere I read that DoT was held responsible for killing VoIP in India. The person who was talking this must be from ISP side. VoIP was opened up in India in 2002, so in last 5 years wht those ISPs has done is now visible. Operators are always reluctant to go VoIP way, and ISPs yet to headstart into business of VoIP, the secnario out there is gloomy. Blamegame is always going to be there, but what ISPs have done? Neither they helped in increasing BB penetration in India nor they pushed up any policy(I am talking about making a lobby for pushing self interest of group like Telecom Lobby) which will boost the penetration of BB in India. ISPs must introspect before deploying VoIPs in India.

Rest we will come to know about market status of 3G when auction will be finished. Many of the operators will be ready with network in span of 6-10 months, so we are likely to see 3G in mid-2009. Delhi and Mumbai will be first to launch 3G in India but spectrum and bid value of spectrum is issue. With only 3GSM slots in Delhi and one is already allocated to MTNL who are the other two is big Q. Airtel and Voda must get it otherwise launching 3GiPhone will become a ridicule story for them.Field is open for all.