7 Indian Telecoms to Start 3G Trials in 17 Cities
December 01, 2006
India's DoT (Department of Telecom) has allocated 2.1-gigahertz frequency bands to seven telecoms including Bharti Airtel, Aircel Cellular, Idea Cellular, BSNL, MTNL, Reliance, and Hutch. The aforementioned operators are thus able to conduct 3G trials based on WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) in 17 Indian cities: Mumbai, Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Chennai, Coimbatore, Bhubaneswar, Shillong, Jammu, Shimla, Patna, Guwahati, Siliguri, Pune, Hyderabad, Howrah, Chandigarh, and Kolkata. According to DoT, the final official policy is expected to be released in the next two months, and 3G telecom services are projected to enter commercial operation by mid 2007.