Speaking about the test, group chief executive officer Jagdish Kini said, "We dirtied our hands to actually know what 3G is all about and how ready our network is. We are now ready to roll out 3G based services."

The department of telecommunications (DOT) had allowed cell phone companies to conduct 3G trails in select cities within the stipulated timeframe of March 31, 2007. Aircel was given permission to conduct tests in Chennai, Coimbatore, Bhubaneshwar, Shillong and Guwhathi.

Based on the trial results, the DOT will draft its policy norms for permitted mobile telephony companies to launch the 3G services.

The Aircel conducted the trials partnering with ZTE Telecom India Pvt Ltd. Apart from the popular services, tests were successfully conducted on downloading large volume of business data and streaming movies online at 3.3 Mbps.

According to Chinmay Mitra, group chief technology officer, the company had deployed the entire range of 3G equipments-mobile switching centre servers, media gateways, radio network controllers, node B, home location register, servers for streaming data services and VoIP nodes- for this purpose.

"The 3G infrastructure will be overlaid on our existing network as such there will be no redundancy of our earlier investment," added K V P Baskar, director & chief executive officer.

In Coimbatore Aircel will be using Ericsson's equipment to test 3G services. This way the company will be able to judge the hardware vendors in advance. In Coimbatore the company has already deployed 3G-core network. It will have to install only radio network controllers and node B.