There is much hype about 3G across media and some part of population in India. After the announcement by GOI, it was made clear that new players who want to join or take part in auction will have to pay extraorbitant fee to get the piece of spectrum which is said to roll out in 22 circle across India. Though exact date of auction and how much of spectrum will be made available is not yet clear many telecom player in India like BSNL and MTNL who are state run entities, has got clear advantage. They were already allocated the some piece of spectrum which gives them headstart in 3G business. Other private players like Bharti,Idea,Voda etc have to wait for auction date to get the spectrum. The problem with state run organization is that though they got head start in 3G, it will take some time for them to procure equipments etc from vendors like Nokia and Ericsson, so their head start time will get compensated by such dealy and soon or later private players will catch them.

There is much hype is surrounded about 3G. 3G stands for third generation mobile networks.Since the launch of telecom network in lat 80s in US and Europe, the first generation of mobile network was analog in manner in which speech was encoded and sent across network. Analog modulation such FM was used and there was no data services avaliable for customers.

In 1990 and around, in EUROPE GSM network was launched which is known to be a open standard and which was adopted by India in 1995. GSM stands for global system for mobile communication which is a 2G network of mobile communication. Later after the launch of Data services(GSM original was Voice carrying network), like sms etc , the 2.5G network was launched which supports higher speed for data networks than earlier addon.

I will discuss the history of cellular communication in another blog because it is itself a separate topic to talk about.

Now within a year or so, when 3G will br rolled out across metors in India, we need to prepare ourself for one more revolution in the field of communication i.e Internet revolution.As I often felt that, only 25% India is penetrated by current technology so there will be great oppertunity for 3G to increase the rate of penetration to 50% or beyond in coming years.

The revolution which I am speaking about is Internet revolution.Most of Indian users of mobile are currently using mobiles for mainly Voice and few data services like sms mostly.After the advent of 3G, broadband Wireless Internet will become a reality with high upload and download speed. Most of users are already having 3G supported mobile phones and now Airtel and Voda are launching 3G iPhone in India on 22 August which will boost the useage of 3G in short, when it is launched.

Recently BSNL said that its 3G network will be ready to launch by next year June.MTNL is also ready for launch.So must be the case with Reliance,Bharti and Voda. But despite all these hype by media and few player, one must really understand the necessity of 3G in India. There is huge cost of network rollout and current network upgradation involved in it. Also, as average revenue per user(ARPU) is decresing per day in telecom industry, launch of 3G may or may not help in increasing ARPU. Telecom industry is still in phase of doubt. Though many of the players will be launching the 3G network in first tier cities like Mumbai and Delhi in coming months the response of masses to upgradation to 3G is still uncertain.So it might happen then few part of network will be 2.5G and other will run on 3G.But sooner of later it will be advisable to migrate the whole network to 3G. After the initial response to rollout, there will nationwide rollout of 3G network.

Current scenario of Indian Telecom industry is like predot-com buzz, where 5-6 more operator are ready to launch their Cellular network across India.And after 3G many of them will have to upgrade to 3G depedning on response, revenue generation etc coming days will decide the fate of new entrants.

There is also news coming from Tata Telecommunication about huge investment in WiMAX technology. WiMAX is again a 3G technology mainly useful for rural communication where erecting towers for few thousand population and network utilization is real issue. What will be the path chosen and which will lead to successfull method of connectivity will be clear only in coming years. In US, there is also wide speculation about 3G and WiMAX where few operators are chosing WiMAX over other technology. But it is certain that in India where there is large rural population is still not connected, WiMAX will play a big role in connecting the rural market.

One thing is very sure, that users of cellular networks in India will gain in this competition with better qualtiy of speech, higher data rates of Internet services and high penetration rate in untapped area like rural India, which is long awaited by Indian customers.3G may be the start of new revolution where one might get to see pan India connectivity of mobile phones and higher penetration of mobiles in rural India.