Aircel conducts successful 3G testing
Telecom service provider Aircel March 1st unveiled 3G technology in the city, for the first time in India, showing that the country is ready for the next generation of mobile services.The union government has asked existing service providers to conduct 3G trials in specific cities.Aircel, in collaboration with Chinese telecom major ZTE Corp., has conducted the trial of this technology for three weeks in the city, Aircel and ZTE officials told the media here Thursday.ZTE has the capability to mix 2G and 3G technology in one network.
The Chinese telecom giant is also researching R5 and R6 technologies (SoftSwitch-based control system of the commercial next generation core networks), which will comprise the 4G telephone services in future.High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) services such as downloading of large volume of business data and streaming movies online at speeds of 3.3 MB per second have also been tested in India, for both computers and mobile handsets, using ZTE cards.The services to be made available are internet access, mobile television, mobile video conferencing, video phone and voice and data services through the same equipment.
'We will be able to offer 3G mobile services upon necessary government clearance in a couple of months,' Chinmay Mitra, Aircel group's chief technology officer said here today.At present a Nokia 6680 handset, which is 3G enabled, costs about Rs.25,000. Experts say once the 3G technology comes in, there will be more demand and hence instrument costs will come down.
Aircel's GSM subscriber base is touching five million and the company says it has the core network and switching in place to go 3G for its subscribers in a few months.Aircel has also roped in Ericsson to provide its media gateway and servers and is also partner it for other telecom technology.The 3G trials are taking place in Chennai, Guwahati, Coimbatore and Bhubaneswar. Chennai and Coimbatore will complete trial by March 31, Jagdish Kini, Aircel group's CEO.
