With the Indian government's announcement on October 6 that India's auction of 3G will be delayed again until the end of the fiscal year 2009, which runs from April 1, 2009, to March 31, 2010, Indian telecom operator Tata Teleservices, a telecom arm of the Tata Group, recently announced that the company plans to earmark an addition US$1 billion for GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) network optimization, India's Business Standard reported on October 17.

Upon the launch of the co-branded GSM services under the name of Tata DoCoMo in June 2009, Tata Teleservices had promised that it would inject US$2 billion into the deployment of its GSM networks, which was set to be spent by the end of the fiscal year 2009 ending March 31, 2010. Currently, Tata's GSM network coverage includes 11 telecom circles and is projected to achieve full network coverage in all 23 telecom circles by the end of December 2009, according to India's Economic Times on October 15, 2009.