Government to announce 3G spectrum policy soon

Mumbai: The government will soon announce a spectrum allocation policy for the roll-out of the third generation (3G) services in mobile telephony, IT and communications minister Dayanidhi Maran said.

He said 2007 would be an important year for broadband penetration in India. BSNL and MTNL were expected to come out with more rational broadband pricing policy, under which the public would be given 'unlimited' speed, he said.

Inaugurating the new R&D facility of Telecom major Ericsson in Chennai, he said companies like Ericsson are doing field trials and are prepared to launch 3G services.

He said the broadband operators, currently providing 252 KBPS speed, should also give unlimited speed, which he said would be "very relevant for enhancing the country's competitiveness in the IT-enabled services and BPO segment".

He said the government planned to construct 8,000 to 9,000 towers using the Universal Services Obligation Fund next year. The DoT was working with various giants of the industry to set up "mobile operators' shared towers" by which operators could reduce cost of constructing their own towers and the call cost of mobile telephony services.