Telecom service provider Aircel 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.
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 on 1st march
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.
At present a Nokia 6680 handset, which is 3G enabled, costs about Rs.25,000.once the 3G technology comes in 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.
